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Get your Pray On

I like to think I’m a praying kind of individual. Before I go to bed each night, I say a set. I’ve been known to take a few moments and say prayer in the middle of the day. When I need to calm down, I repeat the Lord’s Prayer over and over. When I hear of a friend struggling or suffering, I’ll shoot off a prayer. Now that I’m a seminarian, when I enter a room, I’ve become a designated prayer. At first, it was difficult but it’s been getting easier. I’ve even made a learning goal this summer to become more comfortable with extemporaneous prayer. I’m going to start reading prayer books regularly. Before you know it, I’m going be the quickest prayer drawer in the West.

But one thing I’ve struggled with during the last three weeks of CPE has been praying with patients. I don’t offer prayers often and I usually wait for a patient to request them. I’ve prayed with Jewish folks, Muslims, Greek Orthodox, Roman Catholics, Methodists, Baptists, Evangelicals, and Seventh Day Adventists. If I was playing prayer bingo, I’d be nearing a complete blackout. For non-Christians, I leave out the Jesus and tend to borrow their words. For “liturgical” traditions, repeating the Our Father or taking something from a Lutheran Prayer Book works fine. But for other traditions, I’ve struggled. I’ve had my prayers critiqued. I’ve had folks point out how my theology is “wrong” in my prayer. When it comes to traditions where the individual is an active participant in grace, my prayers seem to run into problems. My cries for God to do godly things runs into a dead end. They fail to bring comfort in the way that these patients ask for. Or, worse, these patients just assume I’m “catholic” and am a lost soul anyways so there’s no need to even ask me to pray with them. It’s frustrating.

When I run into this prayer confrontation, I tend to shut down. I’m not looking for pats on the back nor am I asking for a high five. I don’t want to be thanked (though that happens a lot). But I am a stickler when it comes to prayer. The theology might be off, the request might seem strange, and the whole thing might feel different and unfamiliar, but it’s a prayer. It’s a cry in the midst of human suffering. It’s a request for release, for mercy, for love, and for hope. It’s a hope for comfort, for release, for things to work out in the end. It doesn’t mean that it will work out that way – God’s will be done and all that – but, from my point of view, a prayer is the most human response possible to the presence of suffering. Before reaction, before restraint, before gasps, before retaliation, before resistance, there is a cry. And that cry is a human cry, even if it’s done poorly, feels silly, or isn’t in an understandable language. It’s a place where people not in the midst of your suffering can reach out to you and hold on. It’s what people just do.

I never expected to spend this summer working on my theology of prayer but it looks like that I’ll be struggling with that (and a million other things) during the next eight weeks. But thats okay – it’s why I’m here. And it helps that, on this Sunday, while packing up my apartment, my wife stumbled onto an old bottle of bad tequila. I’ve never met a bad tequila I didn’t like.

New York City Boat Ride

Did you know that you can rent a small boat and ride through Prospect Park in Brooklyn? I did not realize that until my friend Rebecca decided to throw a 30th birthday party in the park. 14 fine folks were driven across the waterways for two hours while we all drank wine. It was perfect.

The boat

The Birthday Girl

Lack of curiosity killed the CPE cat

Today, I presented my second verbatim at CPE. So far, I’ve been enjoying the verbatim process. I analyzed a visit, drew some conclusions from it, thought I did a good job, and then was shown that I had been triangulated, undergone some transference, and lacked a curiosity that would have helped with the visit. I did fine but I could have done better. For over an hour, we talked about what I could have done better and the group brought up things they struggle with that was related to what I had done. I had missed some important cues and part of my summer will be spent trying to hear those cues, get curious about them, and then see if the patient I am talking to has an image of God or any sort of spirituality that plays a role in what bringing them hope, meaning, and connection. I just hope that, during the next few days, someone will actually take me up on my offer to talk with them. It’s been two days of “no, I’m fine” or “I’m not into religion.” That can get old after awhile.

In other news, I witnessed something at the hospital on Monday that horrified me. It’s interesting because, of all the people I’ve seen, with all the tubes and medical devices, nothing had really thrown me for a loop yet. However, what I saw near the end of the day was just haunting. It’s an image that I’ve been carrying with me since and that still just hangs in the air around me. It doesn’t cause me to lose sleep or to stop talking with individuals. I’m still able to laugh, make jokes, etc. It doesn’t feel to be holding me back. But what I saw did truly frightened me in a new way. And, for the moment at least, I’m not trying to explain the feeling away nor am I trying to process past it quickly. Rather, one of my learning goals this summer is to try and stay with the feelings I’m having, to acknowledge them, sit with them, and bring them into the present. I have shared this image with my colleagues and mentioned my feelings about it – but I haven’t tried to process it away just yet. And I’ve discovered that, even though it repulsed me, I’m not really afraid of going back to the place where I saw it. I am taking time away for myself, but, in reality, I could easily go back to that place. By holding onto the feeling and the moment, I’m actually still able to function and live in all my present moments. What horrified me didn’t hold me back even though, four weeks ago, I would have told you it would. I keep surprising myself in very tiny ways.

I am a Jack of All Mainstream Christian Faiths; i.e. my first death on CPE

Yesterday, I was the day on-call chaplain at the hospital. My role was to be the emergency contact person for the hospital. If someone called the information desk and asked to speak to a chaplain, I would be their man (or I would farm it off to whoever is the chaplain assigned to their floor). If someone requested a Roman Catholic priest, I would call the local church. I would check the pastoral care request book and phone line every few hours. And my beeper would be set, ready to scream bloody murder at a moment’s notice.

My day started out fairly normal. I visited many different families in the pediatric ICU and various patients on other floors. I had a few long conversations but most were very short and didn’t last very long. Most were fairly polite. Not many conversations felt very theological – even the conversation with a man about how can someone believe in the midst of a suffering world wasn’t really a conversation; the man just wanted to monolog for awhile. A colleague had been the on-call chaplain the day before and their beeper barely beeped. I was hoping for the same.

My summer CPE group and I gathered after lunch to go over some IT stuff. None of our logins to access electronic medical records were working (way to go IT). But two of the students were unable to gather due to deaths that had happened on their floors. And as I sat at the computer desk and my supervisor called IT, my beeper buzzed for the first time. A number flashed on it. I called the number right away and a nurse answered. I told her I was the emergency chaplain on call and was calling the nurse back. The nurse thanked me for the quick response and then spoke the magic words: “We have a patient who is actively dying.”

I found out the patient’s name and their location. The pastoral care department does not make a guarantee to fulfill all religious faith/denomination requests (except for Roman Catholic) but the family did request an Episcopalian. I am not an Episcopalian but one of my colleagues is. He asked to tag team on the call with me. We gathered our things and head to the elevator. On the elevator, we went over our game plan and he showed me where in the Book of Common Prayer the rites at the time of death were located. We entered the floor, met the head nurse, and put on gloves and a gown. We were on a bit of an adrenaline high. We pulled back the curtain, entered the room, and saw an elderly patient’s daughter crying.

It wasn’t easy being in that room but I was amazed at how calm I was. We spoke various prayers. We spent time with the daughter. I was amazed at seeing how the rites and prayers affected the daughter and the patient. Tears flowed but calmness had more face time. Pictures were shared. And I think I saw the moment when the patient truly died but the machines said otherwise. The daughter seemed thrilled that we were both “Episcopalians” and, in the midst of grief, I decided it was best not to correct her. After forty five minutes, we left and made a promise to return later to check up on them.

We went upstairs and gathered with the other students. We all decompressed and told our stories. Lots of death and other painful situations dominated the conversation. We talked about the weight we felt. We named our emotions. We tried to get out of problem solving mode and just be in the moment as a way to center ourselves. I talked about how calm I felt – a calm that surprised and shocked me. In the midst of death, I didn’t know how I would react. But the very words I read from the BCP – words I never saw until that day – seemed to have a soothing effect on me. Just preforming the rite seemed to help. I felt slightly energized and ready to go into that room later in the day.

My colleague and I met again before the end of the day. The game plan was modified so that the true Episcopalian would take the lead. We entered the room and met more family. We prayed more prayers (the Litany on the anticipation of heaven was very nice). The prayers helped quite a bit again and, in the midst of suffering, I honestly felt like we did some good. It wasn’t perfect (we might have held onto silences a little too long) but I thought it went well. And I am really glad that I had the backup that I did.

I doubt this will be the only death that I see during my unit at CPE but it was no where near as scary as I thought it could have been. And even though it went smoothly, I do feel changed by the experience. A few months ago, I helped baptize a young newborn. Yesterday, I preformed the last rites for someone who had lived a long life. I’ve book ended life, so to speak. Now I just need to learn how to deal and minister to all those folks located in the middle.

Message at Advent Lutheran Church’s Common Ground service on May 26

A special word of thanks goes to Dr. Gordon Lathrop. The main idea for this message came from something he said. The reading for the day was Psalm 98.

Vicar Marc
Advent Lutheran Church, Manhattan, NYC
Common Ground, 5/26/2011
Psalm 98

It’s interesting that the two sections of the Hebrew Scriptures that scholars have identified as the oldest are both songs. One is Miriam’s song ‚Äì a short couplet in the book of Exodus and the other is Deborah’s song in Judges. Miriam, with a tambourine in her hand, leads the women in song and dance as the waves from the Sea crush Pharaoh’s army. Deborah, with Barack, sings of the victory over the evil general Sisera who is killed by the woman Jael.

Both are songs of victory ‚Äì of deliverance ‚Äì of salvation ‚Äì of when God acts in very God like ways.
And the words seem…easy and almost effortless.
They are a witness to the awesome power of God and the goodness of God.
God showed God’s power!
It just seems natural to respond in song and praise. The Psalmist here has it right ‚Äì God has remembered God’s people and God saved them.
In the midst of victory, why would anyone do anything but sing?

And now, in the middle of the fifty days of Easter, Psalm 98 feels right from a religious point of view. Jesus suffered. Jesus died. God rose Jesus from the dead. The glorious gospel message ‚Äì that we are loved in spite of our very selves through the work of God in Christ ‚Äì that is victory. We’re marching on to Pentecost and then the Ascension, where we are told Jesus ascended to the very right hand of God ‚Äì a metaphor for God’s power.

So it just sounds right for us to continually, in this and every place, to just sing! Sing! Sing! Why would we do anything else?

But sometimes we just can’t.
Sometimes the words don’t form.
Sometimes we can’t get on the right beat.
Sometimes we can do nothing but lip sync and hope no one sees us.
And other times, we can only stand or sit in utter silence.

There are times when this almost command to sing — stops feeling liberating and instead feels like a prison. In the midst of suffering, in the midst of our own doubts, of our own fears, of our own exhaustion ‚Äì this psalm can feel like an accusation ‚Äì like a giant finger pointing straight at us and telling us that we can’t sing and that there is something wrong with us.

And there are times when it just…it just seems wrong to raise our voice in song.
When the victory and deliverance and hope seem so far away or non-existent,
when we can’t be Miriam or Deborah or Barack or the women by the sea.
And we find ourselves asking “Is there something wrong with me? Am I missing something?
Shouldn’t I be able to just walk it off or put myself on hold just for this moment and sing out?
Can’t I just take a break from where I am and not feel as if I am being faithless?

The church can sometimes do this ‚Äì and make songs of praise lose all its comfort. It’s one of the various things that the church can get very wrong.

When we open the doors on Sunday mornings, the church rightly desires to celebrate the gospel, the resurrection, and the cross. But we can easily view our song as something that we do to please God, or, in someway, to get God’s attention.

The songs no longer are about God coming to us but are our attempts to reach out and grab onto God.

Unlike Miriam and Deborah, whose songs are in response to the deliverance that God brought, we try to gain for ourselves. We push God to be on God’s throne and to do Godly things and hope that, if our tune is right, if our voice is pure, if God notices that we are praising God like God says we should ‚Äì we’ll be okay or we’ll be blessed in some way.

And it is there when the church can turn song into a prison, turn the words of grace into accusation, can block love with a giant finger pointing right at those who, on that day, in that place, cannot sing. It is as if the church says ”

They’re wrong, they’re not here, they’re just doing lip service to God.
They don’t truly believe, they don’t truly have faith ‚Äì they are unworthy.
They are worshipping wrong.
They are wrong.

But, really, sometimes the faithful can’t sing. Sometimes, it doesn’t seem right TO sing.
Tonight, the offering will be given to the ELCA Disaster Response ‚Äì specifically to those agencies helping the area struck by the massive tornado in Joplin, Missouri. Last I read, 125 people were killed, 30% of the city was destroyed, one of the two hospitals is completely unusable ‚Äì and with the destruction of cell phone towers, internet, and other communication devices, they don’t know how many people are really missing yet. Missouri is releasing the list of who they cannot track and find ‚Äì the utter chaos has left 232 people classified as “missing”. Most are likely alive ‚Äì having fled to stay with friends or to neighboring towns and are just unable to contact their families and loved ones. And this tornado is just the largest in a massive outbreak of storms that has already made this year the worse year for tornados in sixty years.

In watching news coverage of the Joplin tornado, I saw video of one meteorologist, standing in the middle of a street ‚Äì the entire area was destroyed.

Trees were uprooted, stripped, debarked;
walls had collapsed;
barely anything was left standing;
All around, everything was now flat.

Now, this meteorologist tried to do his job. He began to report, described the damage, mentioned the tornado, talked about what use to be on that street. But soon, it became too much. The words stopped and were replaced by tears.

The meteorologist wept.

In that place, and at that time, Psalm 98 doesn’t make sense to me. A song of praise for all those who had survived and who were uninjured ‚Äì just wouldn’t fit. In the midst of destruction, of suffering, of brokenness, all the meteorologist could do, was weep.

The right words were tears.
Saying “it could have been worse” isn’t comfort.
What makes sense is to respond with the suffering.

The reporter didn’t plan on crying. He didn’t plan on tearing up. He planned to be stoic, to do his job, to report on the news. He planned to put his emotions on the shelf. But he couldn’t and his only response to what was around him was tears and silence.

And that’s okay.

That response ‚Äì our response ‚Äì our inability to form words and song in our moment and in our lives ‚Äì that’s okay.

It’s something the church doesn’t really say enough.
We can make the mistake of forgetting the cross and moving too quickly to the resurrection. We stop walking with and end up being against.

We let ourselves get in the way of Christ and we teach praise at the expense of our being so very much a part of this world and in this place.

We individualize everything to such a degree that praising is left up to us, no matter if we can form the words or not.

We tell ourselves to “walk it off” because we’re in this on our own.

But we’re really not alone.

The church really can be a gift and when the church gets it right ‚Äì their singing isn’t highlighting my slack of singing but, rather, they are singing for me. When we can’t form the words, the church can. When I can’t match the beat, the church can. When I act like everything is up to me, the church prays and sings that it’s not.

On Sunday morning, we’re not doing something to God but rather God is doing something to us.

And when we can’t sing, others can.
And they will.
And they’ll carry me, you, and all those who can’t sing, in their song.
When we can’t pray, others do.
When we have no words, others do.
The church can‚Äì through the very grace of God ‚Äì carry us with it.
And if Advent can’t, other churches will. If the Metropolitan Synod can’t, the ELCA will. And if the ELCA can’t, our brothers and sisters in Christ throughout the world will.

In some Lutheran churches in the mid-west that were built by Norwegian immigrants, the altar rail is a semi-circle.

When people would come up to receive communion, they would kneel on the cushions at the rail and the pastor would give them the host and the wine. Not many other churches used the semi-circle. Most I’ve seen use the straight rail ‚Äì like Advent has ‚Äì or some various version of it. But everything is always boxy or in long, straight lines.

But for those immigrants, it was the semi-circle that spoke to them and their piety.
Because even though they physically saw only half a circle, they never treated it as such.
You see, for them, the second half of the circle was in heaven and with the entire hosts of heaven.
For them, that’s what it meant to be part of a church that exists in many different places and in many different times.

We’re never alone and we’re never doing this on our own.
When Psalm 98 feels like a prison, there will be others there to fill this place with sound.
And Music.
And Dance.
And all that you cannot do.
And this happens not because the church is perfect or because the church doesn’t hurt people or destroy lives. But rather it’s because that’s what God does for us as Christ walks with us ‚Äì
in the midst of the suffering,
of the pain,
in the silence,
at the times when no words can form.
And where Christ goes, so do we.

Why would we do anything else?

Amen.

A Passing Hello

Today, on my first full day on the floors (minus an hour tutorial on how to access and utilize Electronic Medical Records), I found myself heading to my first floor at 9:30 am. While walking and fumbling with some papers, a middle age man was following a nurse. Both were walking towards me. As we drew close, the man shouted “Hey man!” and waved. I looked up, unsure of who he was, and said “hello!” back. We both walked pass and he said “I get to go home today!” “That’s great! Be well!” I said back to him. It was only then that I realized who he was. I had briefly visited with him two days before. He was very tired and semi-sedated when I saw him. We had a very short conversation and he asked me to say a special prayer for him before he turned over on his side and fell asleep. He remembered my visit and seemed happy to see me before he left. That was pretty neat.

Overall, today was an interesting day. I spent most of my morning visiting heart patients and met quite a few characters. I then spent most of my afternoon in the PICU, introducing myself to families who I had yet to meet. I had three very interesting encounters. 1: a middle age woman was amazed that, while she was reading her daily prayer and studying the apostle Paul, I showed up – she offered to visit my future church some day. 2: I entered the no-man’s land of a family argument where my status as a prayerer was seen as an opportunity by one side of the family to barrage the other. 3: a mother who asked me, in the hallway, to pray for a miracle but not to tell the patient because the patient hates those things. When you visit with 40 people in one day, a lot of interesting things can happen.

I am staying up way past my bedtime and I really shouldn’t. Tomorrow I will be the emergency chaplain during the day. My duty is to man my pager and be ready to refer patients to chaplains (or priests or rabbis) as needed. And if there is an emergency and there is no one to refer the situation to, I am then their chaplain. I will be the page-meister. I should wear a superhero seal.

What am I feeling in the present moment? Guilt.

Today was an interesting day.

Most of today was spent in class – three students presented verbatims and we had an hour and a half “process group.” During process group, we work on connecting to what we are feeling, what is pulling us away from the group, learning more about ourselves, etc etc. After process group, and before the end of the day, the group would visit patients briefly. After my experience yesterday, I created a plan in my head on who I would visit. The PICU, my two other units, and a few specific patients were on my list. It would be a light day but a good day. I did planned to visit an individual I avoided yesterday. I met them on my first day on the floor and, after that experience, I just felt…unsure… of seeing them yesterday. While processing through my first day, I came to the realization that even though I only saw a few patients, I witnessed quite a bit of suffering and that it impacted me. I didn’t feel ready to see that again – I needed a few different experiences to center myself and return back to the places I went to on Friday. Well, at least that is what I told myself. Yesterday, I would walk by one specific patient’s room and notice the door was shut or nurses were in it or doctors were visiting. I allowed myself to believe that there wasn’t any time for me to stop by. But, in reality, I just didn’t want to go in there quite yet and I wasn’t able to push myself to go. But today was different. I had a plan. I was ready and willing.

But that patient wasn’t. I heard, right before process group, that the patient died in the morning.

At first, I felt anxious and wondered what the family was going through. During my time in process group, I mentioned feeling anxiety about knowing if the family was still there and what I would do. What role would I play? Would I be ready for it? But as the group continued, I kept internally examining what I was feeling. I didn’t say it out loud but, in reality, I was feeling guilty. I felt guilty for not visiting that patient and their family the day before. When I met them last week, I was informed that the family was looking to receive more pastoral care and support. They had been in the hospital awhile and I figured that I had many more days with them. But I didn’t and I felt like I let an opportunity step away. And the guilt led to feelings of shame. I really feel I should have made it to see them yesterday.

I do know that the family did receive some pastoral care. Priests were contacted and other chaplains – chaplains who are on staff or are on their fourth unit of CPE – visited and were there. Although the department is small, the resources are fantastic and I am sure that the family was taken care of. But I still feel down because I didn’t risk seeing that family yesterday. I thought I’d have more time with them but I didn’t. And that’s a fact of hospital life. I’m still getting use to the turnover of patients in the units. The long timers are the exceptions, not the rule. Even having patients staying three or four days isn’t normal on my floors. There isn’t really time to wait or to not visit.

Tomorrow and Thursday are days where I’ll be visiting patients all day. I’m not sure, yet, how that will go or how I will break up my day. On Thursday, I will be the on-call chaplain during the day and will be responsible for any emergency ministry needed. I’ll actually get to use my beeper. I’m back to 1983. This is, and will be, an interesting week of firsts.

Kissy Face

I am back at my home congregation for the summer.

It was strange sitting in the pews as a mere congregant rather than as a vicar. Before services started, I mentally reviewed everything that would be different from my field work site. My home congregation prints the entire worship in the bulletin and we use a lot more worship assistants during the service. We also love our cassocks. The choir would be smaller but there would be a lot more organ during the service. Bowing is also in at Trinity LIC. There would be no grape juice option and we would be eating wafers, not bread. The Lord’s prayer would be an older translation rather than what is in the ELW. Basically, all the things that are “normal” to me, all the things I grew up in the faith with, are now all slightly unfamiliar. As I took my pew, I said hello to a few folks around me and shook a few hands. I also looked up and stared at those images of Christ, etched in the windows – images I had memorized over the years. I reviewed the bulletin and started reading the Lutheran: New Yorker. The place gradually filled up and then the prelude started.

After absolution, the congregation shared the peace of the lord our normal way – by shaking the hands of everyone in the room. I saw a lot of familiar faces and many new ones. Old ladies were happy to see me and, soon, my cheeks were covered in red lipstick lip marks. Hugs went around freely and I felt like I probably delayed the start of the gathering hymn all by my lonesome. The service went smoothly and Pastor Paul even name dropped me during the sermon. During the offering procession, as I bowed to the cross, one of my favorite old ladies who was carrying the wafers, patted me on the head. After the service, I made my way down into the undercroft for our quarterly congregational meeting. I picked my seat next to K and ate my fill of delicious fruits, crackers, cheese, cookies, and danishes. Trinity LIC knows how to put out a fellowship spread.

As I walked back to the food table during the meeting (the cookies were calling to me), I was stopped and asked if I would be back on the schedule as a worship assistant. This, people, is how it is done. No delay or time to relax. I said I’d think about it – but went ahead and picked up a role for next week. I am easily volunteered into things.

This week, I am a guest blogger

This week, I will be a guest blogger at Rebecca Likes. My friend Rebecca is on vacation and asked K and I to write some posts for her. Rebecca likes is a blog about clothing, furniture, design, and stores that Rebecca likes. She has great taste and a rabbit named Senator. What’s not to like? So start reading because I’m writing for it and then keep reading it because of Rebecca. You’ll be glad you did.