The House With Many Mansions

I finished my second unit of CPE two weeks ago, amid a great sense of achievement and at the same time a hunger for more (this dichotomy is a great thing, in my opinion – I don’t ever want to lose the desire to learn). My fellow residents and I, along with our supervisor, celebrated the day with a catered lunch (okay, it was from Subway, but who cares? It was free – yes, you CAN get a free lunch!), then took pictures in front of the hospital before heading out a few hours early. On my way out of the office, I cast a cursory glance over the shelves of our small library, and a title stood out to me: INTERCESSORY PRAYER. It stood out because I am cultivating a habit of constant prayer for the patients with whom I meet as one of my spiritual disciplines. When I picked it up, the author’s name stuck out to me: James G.K. McClure, who has such strong ties to the seminary from which I graduated that a few years ago his family endowed a professorship in his name, in the area of Theological Education. I read the first few pages that afternoon, with hungry eyes and an open heart. What stood out to me was the area in which he refers to Jesus’ final words to His Disciples in the Gospel of John, starting with chapter 14, are the best loved words in the Bible.

The following morning when I was making rounds in the ICU to which I’m assigned, I checked on a new patient, an 80-something woman who’d been brought in during the night with severe renal problems. I spoke extensively with one of her sons, who it turns out is a minister and heads a non-denominational church gathering in a neighboring suburb of New Orleans. Once weekly, he and many other area pastors meet for an hour of intercessory prayer, and then head over to Bourbon Street to offer the same for anyone willing and interested who wants to pray. I was fascinated by what he had to say, and we spent a very long time discussing the state of the Church, the problems inherent in organized religion and the deepest spiritual needs of people. Of course we spoke about his mother as well. He had a very healthy attitude toward the entire situation, which is to say that he was not optimistic that she would survive, but happy that she’d had a long life and entirely certain that she was destined for an afterlife. In fact, his family was given the gift of forewarning – an extra week of preparing themselves for the inevitable. One week previously, Mom had been hospitalized when her kidneys shut down. She loved prayer, her son said, and one of the pastors at his weekly meeting, who is from Western Africa, went in to her room to pray over her. As he explains it, he does not pray for healing because in his theology, that is presumptuous. Instead he prays for the presence of God to be felt. While he prayed, he later told the son, the Holy Spirit spoke to him and said, “It is not yet her time. Command her kidneys to begin functioning.” He was flabbergasted by this, but did so – and so it came to pass, much to the amazement of the medical staff. I love to hear stories like this one; they only reaffirm my faith.

This time, her son was less optimistic, but I had a lovely time meeting him and his family Thursday afternoon. Afterward I went into the chapel to pray for a while, and as I left I noticed that the enormous Bible had been closed by someone. Recalling what I’d read in Dr. McClure’s book the previous day, I opened it to John 14 and then left the hospital. Friday morning I went to follow up on her, as I’d promised, but her room was empty – she’d been taken somewhere for a medical procedure. Though I searched for family, I could not find them and so went about my rounds. I got the call just as I sat down to lunch; she simply hadn’t been strong enough to survive this time. When I arrived in her room, another son (she had seven children!) introduced himself. He’d arrived late the previous evening and spent time with his mother, then went down to the chapel to pray. Aside from liking the design of the chapel very much (everyone does; it’s a lovely interfaith chapel with a great serenity to it) he said that he’d looked at the Bible after he prayed, and how it was as if God was speaking to him personally – how grateful he was that it was open to John 14, that that was just exactly what he needed to read. I responded, “I’m glad, because it was I who opened it to that chapter late yesterday afternoon.” We were both so delighted that we couldn’t wait to tell his brother the pastor.

It’s episodes like this one that I want to blog about, not only to keep a record of the miracle but also to share it with others. Surely there is no better message of comfort for us when we’re hurting – not only the words themselves, but how they were delivered to the right person at the right time because of the Spirit’s work within me. So rarely do we enjoy this direct communication with God that it’s all the more precious when it takes place. So for everyone who sometimes wonders what will happen: here’s a message for you to take to the New Year with you: there are many mansions in the Lord’s House, and a place is being prepared for all those who trust in God’s promises. Yes, the Bible says that Jesus told His disciples this, but this time someone got it directly from God: there IS a better place for all those who depart this world.

What A Bringdown! (my apologies to Cream)

In my previous blog, I shared a story about my meeting with a patient in the CCCU, only a day after I had responded to four Code Blues in succession during an afternoon as the on-call chaplain. She was radiant and in good spirits, full of praise for the medical staff, in particular the personnel in the Emergency Department, and wanted to say thanks to them. It was such a wonderful change of pace to meet with someone who had something GOOD going on, and wanted to share it, that I stepped out of character completely. I’ve written more than once about my difficulty in opening up spiritually to others, but with this lady it was completely natural to grasp her hand in mine and begin praising God spontaneously, for her good fortune. It was only afterward that I realized what a significant step this was for me.

One morning a few weeks later I saw her name pop up again on my list of patients; she’d been gone from my units for some time so I figured she must have had a relapse and needed further treatment for her condition. According to the list, though, she’d been a patient here all along. This didn’t make sense, so I went to see her again not only for continuity but out of genuine concern for her condition. I got a nasty shock when I made the follow-up visit, however:– it seems that not longer after I saw her, she had a stroke which rendered her unable to communicate verbally. She was still fully functional mentally, however. I did not need this explanation from the nurse in order to understand the situation: she was clearly lucid but frustrated by her inability to state what she was thinking. Unable to do anything further in a medical sense, the hospital was transferring her to a rehab clinic that afternoon.

To say I was blindsided is putting it mildly; I was like a little kid facing that big moment when you realize that the world isn’t always (if ever) fair. I felt robbed, almost as if the stroke had attacked ME. How dare this happen? Everything was supposed to be better for both of us; she would go home and live a healthy life, and I would continue to open up to others spiritually. I’d been foolish, I realized, to expect that things would just be hunky dory from the moment our visit ended. Maybe it’s actually a good thing that I was naïve enough to expect that things would continue to improve for this patient. After all, I believe that optimism is essential for both a chaplain AND staff and patients – without hope we can flounder. At the same time, I was concerned that it might affect me in a negative way in my relationships with other patients. Would I begin to see anyone as a potential letdown like this? In retrospect as I write this, I’m amazed and proud at the same time that all these things went through my mind AS I visited with her, as opposed to sitting down and analyzing it later. I immediately began processing these thoughts and cut to the chase – what was the most important thing I wanted to convey to her at that moment? How could I be of help? I took her hand again, looked into her eyes and told her how momentous our visit had been for me personally, admitting that I’ve always had difficulty sharing my spirituality so naturally with people, adding how grateful I was that it had occurred and for that reason I’d never forget her. There were tears in her eyes, but she was already upset by her inability to communicate with the nurse, so I’ve no idea if my words were what caused her emotion, or just the situation as a whole.

I don’t know that this was of help to her beyond letting her know that she made such a deep connection with another person without even realizing it. Because let’s be honest: the words were to help ME. Whether it was what she most needed at the moment, I understand now, looking back, that the chance to tell her what our visit meant was a gift to me. Maybe I should have focused on a prayer of comfort and the strength to be found in her faith? Maybe I could have said a simple prayer of farewell, or a brief blessing for the staff at the rehab clinic who would be working with her. Regardless of the shoulda/woulda/couldas, one thing stands out: this time I didn’t pray because I CHOSE not to – not because I found it too difficult. And, for that reason alone, I hope that what I said IS what she most needed at that moment.