Dog Theology, part 4: Chaplain Dog

Here' sthe third installment in my ongoing series titled Dog Theology. (See parts one and two.)

Last night Dakota got loose. It's not unusual for me to let her outside to use the facilities without a leash. She typically stays close and comes back in once she's done. But for some reason, last night she ran off.

To make a long story short, I went out in the cold wearing athletic shorts, sandals and a winter coat. Daddy was not happy. After searching for several minutes I finally spotted her trotting happily down the sidewalk toward me two buildings over.

I leashed and spanked her (yes, we spank in my house!), and she timidly followed by my side back to our apartment like an inmate walking death row. Inside, I put her in the pin which has been retro-fitted with metal bars and looks like puppy prison.

Several minutes later, I came around the corner and found Lola lying faithfully in front of the crate as if to keep her company while incarcerated. "What a good chaplain dog," I thought, "she's simply being present with Dakota." I have opportunity to learn from this dim-witted doggy.

There's a lot to be said for simply being present with someone as I visit in hospital rooms. By present, I don't mean only there physically in the room. But when chaplains talk about being present with someone we try to be presently aware of a person's suffering and fears. We try to give them words to claim their pain and permission to ask tough spiritual questions or to doubt.

For me, to be present with someone is to let him know that he is valued and that he is known. There is power in being known by other people; some would say that the deepest level of intimacy between two people is to know and be fully known by the other. It's a gift that we are able to give hospital patients which they're probably not looking for. Perhaps that why we call it being present, because it's such a gift.

Lola was being present with Dakota, because when Dakota is in the slammer Lola has no play buddy, and thus she was sad. Lola was present with her big sissy, and this K-9 example may further teach me to be present with those who suffer, with those I meet daily, and to be present with you.

Starbucks Church

I recently stumbled across this video called "What if Starbucks Marketed Like a Church?" The video originated from a church marketing website founded and run by Richard Reising, a marketing consultant.

We all know that churches have their own unique brand/genre of marketing, and that genre is so different than corporate society that when churches do market like big business something feels odd about it. I live near Biltmore Baptist Church which often has commercial advertisements on stations that real people actually watch. And when they come on the TV it's plain weird. Churches just don't advertise that way.

But here's the prophetic video which just might be a wake up call. Though five minutes long, it's worth a watch and dripping with truth.

Enjoy.





Let's here your comments about it. Javalluiah!

Small Steps

I was on call Christmas Eve, here at the hospital all evening and through the night. And I must report that for some this season of usual cheer was replaced by waves of grief and holes of dark sadness. For some, this Christmas is like this ornament, broken.

8:45pm, I get a page from the emergency center that a cardiac arrest patient has arrived and the husband is in the lobby. The 30 something female patient is in "the room" that you don't want to be in, because to chaplains this room equals sad families.

Escorting the husband down the long hallway to a private waiting room our steps are small. My usual long strides are replaced by meager paces as I mimic the rate at which this worried husband is moving.

After a short time the doctor darkens the door to deliver the worst news. The husband breaks down, but shock and disbelief allow him the agency to direct me to retrieve his 11 and 15 year old children now arrived in the lobby.

This is one of the hardest parts of my job. Back to the lobby, I know the news, they don't. But it's not my place to deliver it, so my face must be a mask. Every signal of my body language is a lie. While escorting these two innocent now children of a single parent to the back room we take small steps. It takes long, but not long enough.

Dad's face does not lie. Children break down, and the family huddles in a scrum of screaming tears and painful hugs. This competes for one of the hardest scenes I've watched. More family arrives accompanied by more disorder and hurt. My role now expands to encompass crowd control as we wait for the coroner.

In the midst of hospitalized red tape, waves of grief and phone calls to break the news, an hour flies by, then two. The 11 year old vomits as a physical response to his grief. More family arrives. I struggle to avoid offering the cliches that "this is God's plan," or "It'll be alright," because this is not God's plan, and for this huband and children it will never be alright.

More family and two pastors show up to support everyone. By the time they're preparing to leave the hospital it's been three hours. The family is exhausted from crying so much, I'm exhausted from trying not to. After final embraces and parting words the husband and two children make their way to the car. Their family is one short. Bidding them goodbye and fighting my own tiredness and anxiety, I notice as they slowly walk away that once again they're taking small steps.

The crowd dwindles, and my moment to leave them arrives.

My walk back to the on call room where I can rest takes longer than usual. Burdened by my own grief I kept asking the terrifying question, "What if that was my wife?" And the last thing I noticed before I got to my room was that I also walked with small steps.

The Shack, by William P. Young

After hearing an annoying amount of people tell me that they absolutely loved this book, or that it changed their lives, after hearing too many accolades about what I decided was just the newest trendy book, I finally gave in to the hype and read The Shack by William Young.

Religious fiction is the appropriate gengre I believe for this book, and though it is extremely trendy, trendiness, contrary to my first assumption, is not necessarily a bad thing. Rather, after blazing through the 250 page dreamed divine encounter I must say our popular Christian culture could use more books like this.

Yes, I give my oh-so-coveted endorsement to this book, and the ground from which I give it is theological.

Mack is a husband and father, the out-doorsy type, whose youngest daughter is tragically murdered while on a family camping trip by a serial killer in an abandoned shack deep in the wilderness. Years later he returns to the shack searching for answers and encounters God in the form of three persons.

The book is heavily weighted with big theological questions, the biggest being Where is God in the midst of suffering? Worried that Young was writing from a theolgically mainline and conservative point of view I expected blaise answers to these questions to pop up offering little satisfaction to inquiring readers. Delightfully, Young challenges our narrow-minded views of God, and instead he presents God often in new ways and offeres fresh perspectives for understanding God's love for people.

The author covers a fair array of theological issues such as Trinitarian metaphors, theodicy, vengeful-God theory, God's love for all (yes everyone), salvation, atonement theories, and institutional religion. During his discussion of the Trinity I could clearly pick out a number of different theologians/theories being referenced such as Richard of St. Victor's Trinity of Love and the notion of Perichoresis. Being able to name these perspectives from which the book was drawing took away from it a little bit for me; but this was short lived and the read only got better.

What I take away from the book is an increased notion that God truly does delight in each of us regardless of what we do or do not. Each time the character "Papa," representing The Father, mentioned someone Mach knew, she would say, "Oh, I'm especially fond of that one." God is especially fond of you and of me.

Another section that challenges conventional conservative perspectives for the better is this little exchange:

(Mack) "Is that what it means to be a Christian?" (Jesus) "Who said anything about being Christian? I'm not a Christian...Those who love me come from every system that exisits. They were Buddhists or Mormons, baptists or Muslims, Democrats, Republicans and many who don't vote or are not part of any Sunday morning religious institutions. I have followers who were murderers and many who were self-righteous. Some are bankers and bookies, Americans and Iraqis, Jews and Palestinians. I have no desire to make them Christian, but I do want to join them in their transformation into sons and daughters of my Papa, into my brothers and sisters, into my beloved."

The Shack is a recommended lesiurely read for Christians that will make you think and hopefully broaden your view of divine possibilities. For non-theists, my hope is that this book will present a non-judging, non-violent, all-loving God that is perhaps not so repulsive to many critics of Christianity.

Suicide: Is God judgemental or compassionate?

My first exposure to suicide was in high school when a girl in my circle of friends took her own life by chasing a bottle of asprin with a bottle of Nyquil. I still vividly remember the black dark hole of sad emotions that engulfed my world and took weeks to lift away like a sun-rise in slow motion. So many of us were devestated.

Simple death (if there is such a thing) causes enough grief and pain for survivors, but things change when a person ends his or her own life purposefully. Simple conclusion: Suicide hurts a lot of people, I dare say, more than it hurts the victim.

I've oft heard suicide referred to as very selfish, but I've always kind of winced at such statements. But I'm also very torn on this one. From what I remember, my friend in high school was under an enormous amount of emotional pain, relationship stress and family anxiety. She suffered by simply being awake. But at the same time, her release from life caused thousands of tears and intense greif reactions from her friends and peers who all cared for her.


I've talked with quite a few hospital patients who made suicide attempts. And one conclusion I can draw is that suicide is not as easy as it looks! Lots of people survive. You might say they're bad at suicide.


I must have seen half a dozen people recover after shooting themselves...mostly in the head! One lady shot herself in the chest, went to minor surgery, stayed one night in the hospital and went home. Some wind up in ICU, some are rushed into extensive surgery, some go to the psychiatric wing, and some ultimately succeed after hours of excrutiating pain.

Some patients call the chaplain to ask, "the suicide question:" Does God send you to hell if you commit suicide? I've been called to the psych unit for just this question. My theology (though I'm not even sure I believe in a literal afterlife hell) says to this question, absolutely not! But, I dare not be so adamant to a psych patient who may be looking for theological persmission to try again guilt free.

Some of the worst emotional pain I've witnessed in the hospital is from families of suicide attempts. When I see such unecessary suffering I feel the selfishness of suicide. But when I talk to the patients themselves, more than once have I felt the overwhelming need for releif of life's troubles.

I think God's heart breaks when one of God's children ends his own life; but it may be that God's heart has broken a thousand times over the string of suffering that leads a person to such drastic action. I know this to be true, because almost everytime I feel my own heart break for these people. And if my heart is breaking, I must believe that the heart of a loving God is doing the same.

Total Money Makeover, by Dave Ramsey

I recently read The Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey after a dear friend bought for it me on a whim. Compelled to read the book because it was a gift and because I know little about money, I'm much better off for doing so.

Dave Ramsey is a money guru who has authored several money books, produced financial materials such as Financial Peace University, and has a talk radio show with an advertised 3 million listeners.

The Total Money Makeover provides a theoretical financial plan for how to get and stay out of debt. With a thin venear of Chrsitianity overlayed, the book does not offer technical equations for making wise, high-return investments. Rather, it reads more like a motivational speech containing straight forward sometimes harsh advice for those up to their eyeballs in debt.

And it works. Litered with real peoples' success stories, I can find no reason why Ramsey's plan might fail if carried out with what he calls "gazelle intensity."

One concept that I appreciated about the book was this point. Most people do not recieve formal training for how to handle money. I've graduated high school, college and graduate school, and in all of that have recieved zilch in financial education. Most Americans are financially ignorant. And that's where the book starts.

The basic premise is to begin to tell your money what to do rather than the opposite. This is one of the reasons why I think Ramsey is so popular: his advice is accessible. I know virtually nothing, technically, about handling or investing money. And I'd venture that lots of people are just like me. Ramsey doesn't waste time mulling over the technicals which require a CPA to interpret. He has two basic principles: save your money and pay your debts.

In the end, the book was a simple quick read which offered inspiration for becoming financially fit more than anything else. The plan is broad enough for just about anyone, yet specific enough that I can carry it out without having to reach for help every other step. I would recommend it as a necessary read for any young person or couple getting a start on life hoping to handle money well.

Half Way

Last week we residents hit a mile marker of sorts in our program. On 12/15 we officially began the 2nd half, the back nine, we're over the fence,the other side of the coin, the third quarter of our residency program.


That means in 6 months I will be eligable to get a full time job as a chaplain if I so desire. It also means that in 6 months I will be out of job! It means that of what I planned on learning this year, I better have learned half of it by now or else I'd better get crackin'.


As a quick recap, here are some of the things I've done, accomplished or experienced in half a year.


I have had approximately 1,330 encounters with patients, family members, staff or people in the hospital.

I have attended over 60 deaths. I've also been to about 60 traumas. Some of them wound up in death.

I have seen many--many--tears shed by mourning loved ones. I have shed more of my own tears these months than in the previous 6 years, or 12 years. Honestly, I haven't cried this much since I'm a baby.

I have grown very close very quickly to my other fellow residents, and I cherrish our relationships as some of the most formative in my life.

I have learned...oh how I've learned.

I have blogged bunches, and apparantly some of them make my big sissy cry...which I love.

I have read more books in this period than any other similar sized stretch of time. Most of them have been reviewed on this blog, but a few are still to come.

I learned better to read the "living human documents" that we all are. I've learned to see God in your eyes.

Compassion for others has grown in me like wild lillies--fast, tall and beautiful. I've learned that in some ways we are all the same.

I've learned God is usually bigger than we give God credit for.


I've seen an unmeasurable amount of suffering and been challenged to wrestle and reconcile with the presence of suffereing in the world. At the moment, I've concluded that God truly is present in suffering but usually only inasmuch as I am or you are present with those who suffer.


I've learned to do therapy on myself and have become much more reflective. I've also learned that virtually everyone can benefit from therapy, and those who think they don't need it usually need it most.


Whatever CPE is, it has been very healthy for me and my growth. It may not make sense to CPE outsiders, but here's a quote with which to end this post that is basically CPE in a nutshell.

"If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn’t part of ourselves doesn’t disturb us." –Herman Hesse

Dog Theology, part 3: Delight

A former room mate of mine and I once ruminated on the likeness between the dog/man relatinoship and the man/God relationship. This branch of thinking was quickly named "Dog Theology" in honor of those bumber stickers which read Dog is Love. From time to time I like to comment on another point of contact or similarity between the two relationships.


My dogs are the greatest! I love them both very much, and while my wife and I are childless the dogs will serve as our little ones to care for. One of the things that I love most about my dogs is that I simply delight in them.


Dakota is wily. She's sneaky, kniving and loving. And I must admit, though she often uses her brains to get herself in trouble, I really love that part of her.


Lola is not burdened with an over abundance of brains. She loves to show off and carry around her favorite toys while snorting at you. She has high energy and is not graceful.


It's not uncommon for my dogs to do something which agrivates me or that I don't like. However, I always seem to love them. I delight in them. They don't have to do anything in order for me to simply delight in them.


When I look at Lola just laying in the floor on her back I take delight. When I watch Dakota sniffing the ground looking for a good location on which to make a deposit I am delighted just because she is.


When I think about this relationship dynamic and translate it to the man/God relationship I see similarities. Part of my theology includes the claims in Genesis that God created man and saw that man was "good." When I read this I hear that God delights in man. This means, just like my dogs, it's not my job to make God like me, God simply enjoys my being.

I can only take joy in the thought that I am loved as recklessly and even more intensely than I love those two cute little four-legged-tale-waggers.

Happy Holidays

Realizing that some people are less comfortable wishing everyone 'Merry Christmas,' as addressed in my last post, here's a list of ways to say 'Happy Holidays' in a few other languages.

Enjoy!

French: Joyeuses Fetel.
Swedish: Trevlig Helg.
Portuguese: Boas Festas.
Romanian: Sarbotori Fericite
Mandarin: Jie Ri Yu Kuai
Carlan: Bones Festes
Italian: Buone Feste
South African (Xhose): li holide eximnandi
German: Forhe Feiertage
Dutch: Prettige feestdagen
Hawaiian: Hou'oli Lanui (pronounced how-oh-law la-new-ee)
In Gaelic: Beannachtai na feile
Slovenian: Vesele Praznike
Indonesian: Selamat Hari Raya
Croatian: Sretni praznici
Souther English: Happy Holidays Ya'll!

I hope everyone's season is filled with a full amount of love and light and happiness.

Merry Christmas

There's just over a week until Christmas and people are wishing others 'Merry Christmas,' 'Happy Holidays' and other yule blessings.

So in the spirit of such blessings here's a list of how to say Merry Christmas in several different languages.

Enjoy!

Chinese: (Mandarin) Kung His Hsin Nien bing Chu Shen Tan
Chinese: (Cantonese) Gun Tso Sun tan'Gung Haw Sun
Croation: Sretan Bozic
Danish Glaedelig Jul
Filipino: Maligayang Pasko
Finnish: Hyvaa joulua
French: Joyeux Noel
German: Frohliche Weihnachten
Greek: Kala Christouyenna!
Indonesian: Salemat Hari Natal
Irish: Nollaig Shona Dhuit
Italian: Buon Natale!
Jajpanese: Shinnen omedeto. Kurisumasu Omedeto
Portuguese: Felize Natal!
Russian: Pozdravlyenie s Rozjdyestvom i s Novym Godom!
Swedish: God Jul

Next will be a list of how to say 'Happy Holidays.'

A Fine Balance, by Rohinton Mistry

I recently finished the arduous process of reading the extensive novel A Fine Balnce by Rohinton Mistry. A 603 pager with small font and tiny margins, this book that more resembles a brick took me just over a month to get through. And only now that I'm done with it can I say it was well worth it!

Mistry writes a tale woe (and when I say woe I mean, "wow") taking place in an unnamed city in India during 1975. The book follows the happensatance meeting of four people who develop an invaluable relatinoships, and end up living together for one year. Tracking the background of each person's family of origin, the reader understands well the struggles and idiosyncrecies of each character as they learn to deal with each other and cope with life.

Much like the 2008 film of the year Slumdog Millionaire, this book seems to tell these stories as a means to depict the situation in India. However, unlike Slumdog there is no sugar coating of a million bucks or a happy ending love story. A Fine Balance tells it like it was: horrible, heart-breaking, infuriating, shocking, and just plain sad.

Mistry has no need to strain his creative mind nor make florid his prose to produce his story. Rather, simply telling the stories of the characters will draw you in as your inner you, the part that connects you to all other people, is touched and the rope of your heart's compassion is tugged on.

Though officially the genre of the book is fiction, a note in the beginning makes very clear that though the city is unnamed, and the places visited are non-specific, the stories are all true. This book will expand your compassion for people different from you. One cannot read these tales and walk away unchanged.

A Fine Balance is a recommended read. If you have the time to put into it, this book will put in to you.

Hill-Rom

I'm fascinated! I just finished hearing from an employee of Hill-Rom about the complexities and intricacies of one of its main products. Hill-Rom makes hospital beds and medical equipment. A friend of mine has the job of training nurses on how to use these beds. The beds are much more than just beds, "they are medical devices," designed for comprehensive patient care.

An intensive care unit bed can not only move up, down, tilt and contort in all different directions, but it can massage patients, gently wave them to sleep as if sleeping on water, remove heat from specific detected hot spots on a patient's body, rigorously shake patients to keep clogged lungs healthy, and that's not all.

A standard hospital bed that can do the basics often costs around 5K. The super ICU models with all the bells and whistles can easily compare in price with a new SUV.

Because of all they can do, the beds really are not just beds. They can take care of patients, being gentle to wounded areas, in ways that otherwise would tie up nursing staff for an entire day. The newest models will even talk to you in English or Spanish!

Some beds have silver in the mattress which reduces infection. They can also detect ares on your body that are too hot and actively remove that heat to keep you cool, dry, and clean. Patients with pneumonia have a gunky build up in the lungs. This needs to be loosened up by shaking or pounding on the back. The beds can do this so the nurse can go about doing the other 2 million things s/he has to get done.

As said above, these are medical devices, and I am amazed each time I hear or read something else of which they are capeable. The next time I casually lean on one I'll imagine leaning against a Toyota 4Runner.

Maybe we can get one placed in the on call room so it can lull me to sleep by gently rolling massagy waves along my back. That sounds nice!

X-mas Music

If you want some variety from the seasons usual Christmas tunes you can check out these two delightful songs, which I revisit every year for a good laugh.


My absolute favorite! Visit this site for the best (or at least most moving) version of "Oh Holy Night" you'll ever hear. I alsmost cried laughing so hard the first time I heard it. And I'm fairly sure it's real.


You may have heard it before, but Adam Sandler's "Hanukkah Song" is quite entertaining. Here's a link to a YouTube showing of it, but I think Sandler was partially drunk during this preformance so the words are hard to understand at times. Take a moment to listen to Sandler's list of Jewish (or partly Jewish) celebrities and have a laugh.


Enjoy!


Merry Christmas, happy Hanukkah, have a great Solstice, happy Kwanza, have a good Dwali and also Bodhi Day, and of course, enjoy Festivus!

Images

Recently, we (the 4 residents) have been exploring different images that serve as good metaphores for pastoral care in the hospital. The wounded healer, the wise fool, the intimate stranger, and even the circus clown have all been inspiring images from which we can take parts to inform our care.

After finishing Dykstra's book, Images of Pastoral Care, our teacher inspired us to come up with our own images that represent some part, though not all, of our own pastoral style. The following is mine.

_____________________

I am a good listener. Holding my tongue and reserving my opinion come naturally to me during conversation. I am also a musician. I love listening to, playing and creating music.

In patient rooms I do lots of listening. I hear stories, complaints, tales of woe, theological copings and difficult questions. I hear people’s lives poured out. Their struggles, fears, life narratives, greatest achievements and deepest passions are mine, even if only for a few moments.

Much of my response is to keep them talking. And within the wealth of information and emotion that they share I always begin to see the beautiful people which they are. I become able to see not the drug addict but the innocent boy beaten down too many times by life who turned to narcotics as a means of survival. It's amazing how compassion userps the space previously occupied by judgment and prejudice. I see the beauty underneath all the pain, the clean sheet underneath its stains.

I make effort to sift through the superfluous details of people’s stories and find my way to their pain, to their beauty. I find myself filtering through the white noise of their stories trying to pull out the purity of their being and empower them to recognize it for themselves.

Reflecting on my pastoral care described this way an image began to form in my mind. A musical image, it is befitting that I thought of a Recording Studio Technician. The studio technician must also be a good listener. He or she is listening to musicians pour out their lives through music.

Song lyrics express life’s struggles, fears, stories and passions. Much like a patients spills it to the chaplain, the musician sings (spills?) it for the technician. However, after the recording session is complete the technician has work to do. Raw sound tracks are accompanied with white noises and unnecessary sounds that must be filtered out before the beauty of the song can be brought to bear. A good technician can quickly see or hear the purity and beauty of a song that simply needs to be uncovered.

So, much like a recording technician sifts through a newly recorded song/track to clean it up, I find myself sifting through people’s stories in order to help them find their clean self, to help people see themselves as God does: pure, and good and loved.