Intimate Strangers

Forrest Gump's momma used to always say it about life, and I think it's fair to say it about visiting in the hospital: "...[it] is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're going to get."

This statement has always been true for me each time I rap on the door of a new patient on the kidney floor, or the heart center, the ICU or of those fighting cancer. I never know what I'm walking in on.

Most South Carolinians are good ol' southern country folk of which many are even Baptist. This is no curve ball for me. But again everyone it different. They have different assumptions about clergy or religion, and I can never be ready for what they're going to project onto me.

I have been invited, after knocking, into rooms where patients are all but naked, getting some air, with no regard that the chaplain is not doctors and might feel a bit uncomfortable. I have walked in on a patient who speaks no English and was forced to regurgitate my old Spanish days trying to convey that "estoy el capayan, el pastor," and that I'll return with a translator.

Yesterday's visiting hours were no more or less diverse than any other days, but the cast of characters which I encountered was so diverse it couldn't be made up.

Room 1: A sweet older grandmother-type lady who absolutley loves young strapping ministers. We get along. She has been given 6 months to live, and the last thing she wants to do is to meet her grandson. She has Skyped with him many times, because he lives across the globe in the Repblic of Georgia. At 2.5 years old he already speaks two languages!

Room 2: The patient is intubated, and therefore unconscious, but the nurses inform me that they had to call security earlier on a man who, claiming to be family, insisted beligerantly on taking control of the medical decisions. The other family denied his affiliation, and security had to physically remove him as he resisted.

Room 3: A victim of a rare disorder known as Dubowitz Syndrome, this 30 year old patient looked half that age except for his 5 o'clock shadow. Only approximately 200 cases of this diagnisis have been reported...ever. So, very little is known for treatment. On top of things, he was also deaf and mute. Parents stayed with him at all times.

Room 4: The last time I peaked in on this man he was intubated after going through a risky 20-hour long open heart valve replacement surgery. This time he's sitting up in a chair reading his Bible, and he happens to be a prominent doctor who works in our system. Surprisingly, doctors do not walk on water. I found this out as we chatted, and the conversation was strikingly like those I've had with countless other heart surgery patients. This was a delight.

Because of this great diversity, the plight of a chaplain is not to learn what is a good thing to say in all possible scenarios. No. My task is to become comfortable in my own skin so that whatever room in which I find myself I can be authentic.

So, project onto me whatever assumptions you want. Try and sway my theology to come and mimic yours. Presume that I'm going to agree with your every belief. Do your worst. And what I will do in response is my best to put you at ease, find ways to calm your spirits and find light in the darkest places of your fears. For, after only 8 months of this kind of work, there is little left that can shock me.

Talking with patients I am mostly a stranger, yet I am privy to some of most intimate details of people's lives. Truly, as Robert C. Dykstra put it, this work is about learning to be an intimate stranger.