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