If I Had a Hammer...

Yesterday, our resident group left the hospital early to head over to the Moffitt Cancer Center on USF’s campus.  We sat at a table with 10 other chaplains from other hospitals in the area and had a webinar with about 100 other chaplains/ministers through a conference call led by an ACPE Supervisor from Durham VA Medical Center named John Oliver.  There was a time in the discussion when we were laying out exactly what a chaplain does in a visit, especially after a traumatic event has occurred in someone’s life.  I grabbed onto something in particular that Rev. Oliver said and I want to explore it a little bit.  So here we go...

I am always getting asked by my friends/family about what one does as a hospital chaplain.  The misconception of chaplains is that we go door to door with a Bible offering scripture readings and ‘fix-it’ prayers (I can’t blame people for having those thoughts; I had them, too, before I ever took CPE).  But as chaplains, we are called to connect with the patients at many levels: spiritually, emotionally, physically, physiologically, etc.  Our director of the Pastoral Care department calls this “educating the gut.”  In other words, it is the ability to go into a room with no expectations or agendas of where the conversation will move, but instead being there in the wellspring of conversation, finding what is in our gut, and bringing it into the conversation.  On the flip side, I believe that if we go throughout the hospital with the understanding that we have a word for the patient to hear, that we can “save” the patient, or that our prayer will offer instantaneous healing, then we are cheapening the gospel message and the reality that often times prayer is a long-involved process and one that doesn’t result in the way we had originally hoped.  (Just as I was about to post this blog, I read a comment from my Aunt Beth from my previous posting…she describes it well in saying that from her experience while her husband was in the hospital, she felt like pastors were coming in for a healing just so they could add to their pastoral resume…great example, Beth!)

The reason I connect this with yesterday’s webinar is because Rev. Oliver gave us a wonderful quote to help summarize these thoughts.  He said, “If the only tool we have is a hammer, we will begin to see everything as a nail.”  Aha!  That is exactly what I was feeling but couldn’t quite put my finger on it.  Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) is the organic process of giving us a variety of tools from which to pick, not just the use of one tool for all visits and patients.  If the only way we know how to meet people in their suffering is through a quick-fix Bible quote and prayer, I don’t think we are being faithful to our calling as chaplains.  OK, it's disclaimer time: sometimes, a scripture reading and prayer is exactly what a patient needs and request, and by all means I will be faithful to that request – I just seek to avoid a “one size fits all” hammer and nail approach to hospital ministry.  For example, sometimes I go into a room and as soon as a patient hears I am a chaplain, s/he will say, “Oh ok, then will you pray with me?”  And I ask, “Are there certain things going on in your life for which you’d like me to pray?” And before you know it, I will be sitting with the patient for an hour listening to him/her debrief a traumatic, fearful, or guilt-ridden situation in his/her life.  In my ministry, I think creating the space for patients to discover what lies beneath their words is crucial…to begin to unravel the feelings and to the emotions that are underneath the story.  This allows the deep, unrepeatable, and genuine connection to take place.

At the end of the webinar, Rev. Oliver encouraged us to do a pastoral visit with someone and only asking a maximum of 3 questions in the whole visit.  Questions can often times (but not always) be asked out of our own selfish “need to know” basis, but if we just listen, encourage, and mirror back to the patient, I imagine those questions will get answered and we will find a more genuine conversation has come out of it.  I plan on taking Rev. Oliver up on his challenge, and will let you know how that goes. :-)

So my fellow chaplains, friends, family, and loved ones, feel free to carry a hammer in life - just make sure it’s attached to a belt filled with lots of other tools.  Because then we will see ourselves not as the hammer out to fix the nails in the world, but rather as humble servants who seek to reach people who are grieving and healing, frightened and anxious, suffering and alone.  And if you need an example of how we might do that, open the scriptures: you'll find that Jesus' ministry begins to sound very similar to what I'm describing.