It's a Long Story . . . Part One
I worked as a pastoral care volunteer two mornings each week, and found it to be so rewarding. After about a year, things in my life changed, and I was no longer free during the day because I had taken a full-time job. I found that I missed the hospital work tremendously, and phoned Sister Angela to see if what she thought. What she thought was that I'd had enough experience on the job that she'd like me to come in on Friday nights from six until ten and carry the beeper so that the on-call chaplain could be relieved for a bit. I did that for two years.
It was during those nights when I was the only active pastoral care person in the hospital, responding to Codes, Traumas, and deaths, that I came to believe that this work was what I was called to do.
I looked into it. To get a job as a hospital chaplain, a person had to have a seminary degree, denominational endorsement, and four units of clinical pastoral education. I was woefully underqualified, not having had more than a single semester's worth of college, all told. But the idea never went away. I spoke with my pastor who said it certainly sounded to him as though I was being called to do this, and suggested I not look at all that was ahead but simply to begin to work towards an Associate degree. So in 1989, I left my full-time job, returned to at-home medical transcription, and began degree programs through an unusual model for adults returning to college at Thomas Edison University. I earned a B.A. in two and a half years.
The letter accepting my application to seminary came the day of my 30th high school reunion.
It's a Long Story . . . Part Two
I began seminary in September of 1992, and entered candidacy at the same time. The first year was difficult -- we learned a full year of Koine Greek in one month, did weekly translations from Greek to English, studied Bible, church history, Christian education, liturgy, and other subjects. I felt as though I was treading water, struggling to keep afloat in these foreign courses. It wasn't until second semester when we studied pastoral care that I felt comfortable.
The summer following that first year was the summer of CPE, clinical pastoral education. I spent ten weeks at a major inner city teaching hospital that was also home to a high level trauma unit and regional spinal cord injury center. There were six of us in the group, diverse by gender, ethnicity, age and religious preference. We worked hard: Every sixth night I was on call, spending the night in the hospital and hoping for sleep. Every sixth weekend there was a 24-hour shift. I learned a lot. I sat with the dying, contacted families for drive-by shootings and other kinds of gunshot injuries, spent time with an HIV-positive new mother of twins, performed emergency baptisms, stayed with people whose diving accidents had rendered them quadriplegic.
It was exhausting. And I loved every bit of it.
As I moved through the candidacy process, I came to understand that my denomination would not -- at that time, at least -- permit an individual to complete a degree with a goal of chaplaincy. They required that a person become ordained and serve a congregation as a parish pastor for a minimum of three years. While I did not feel that I had been called to be a parish pastor -- I had no interest in presiding, marrying, burying -- I was aware that ten years earlier I had no inkling of being a hospital chaplain, so I pursued the path laid out for me until I came to the internship year. While working at a nearby church as a paid intern (half-time for two years; the other half-time was seminary classes), I knew for certain that this was not what I was supposed to do, that pursuing ordination and using a congregation for three years for my own purposes was just wrong.
I resigned the internship, withdrew from the candidacy process and met with the dean at Seminary who laid out an alternative path for me to complete the M.Div. and I graduated with my class, with no idea what I would do next.
It's a Long Story . . . Part Three
No longer a full-time seminarian, all I knew was that I still believed I was called to hospital chaplaincy. Part-time medical transcription was placating the demands of the checkbook. The way to do pastoral care in hospital was to do more CPE. I was accepted into a learning group at a different inner city hospital where for an academic year I spent parts of two days week in group work and floor work, this time covering the kidney transplant and oncology floors. I learned a lot more.
At the end of that year, I applied to and was selected for another part-time CPE unit back at the first hospital. The group was, again, diverse, and I learned more and more about hospital ministry and about myself as I spent two days each week and on-call every Thursday night. I began to branch out -- in addition to the floors I was assigned and the on-call in the ER/Trauma Center, I spent time with exhausted, drained medical staff and more time with families of very sick people. I well remember the day that a Mafia kingpin was brought into the ER. He passed away within moments of his arrival, and I spent much of that afternoon with his bewildered and immaculate wife and several men in suits whose connection with the deceased remained unclear. I didn't ask a lot of questions. One day the President was coming to Philadelphia and a trauma bay was kept at the ready along with a blood supply; fortunately, they were never needed.
A second unit followed back-to-back with the first and at the end of that time I had completed four units and much of the S.T.M. degree.
Six months or so later, I found myself at loose ends. I was close to the end of my studies and was no longer in a hospital setting. At-home medical transcription was lonely work. When a telephone call came from the school where I had worked before going to seminary, a call telling me that the head of school was without an assistant and would I like to return, I accepted the offer. I had not lost the feeling that hospital chaplaincy was where I was supposed to be, but it seemed impossible, so I closed that door and embraced Quaker education.
It's a Long Story . . . Part Four
Early on my efforts at finding another job were fruitless: No one wanted to even interview a woman in her late sixties with spotty technology.
The school kindly provided for me a number of sessions with an outsourcing professional. A kind, bright and optimistic woman, she helped me revamp my resume, look at the kinds of things I was good at, and how to best sell myself to prospective employers. (Her being a quilter enhanced her likability.) She looked at finding a new job as just a piece of making the adjustment to what had happened. She said to me, "Oh, six months or a year from now, you'll say 'Losing my job at the school was one of the best things that ever happened to me.'" As much as I liked and respected her, my response was, "Baloney."
I jumped at the first job that was offered to me, partly because I was afraid there wouldn't be a second possibility and partly because staying at the school through the end of the academic year had become untenable. We'd met with a financial planner and four mornings a week running the office of a very small church seemed like it would work for us. And so I left the prestigious Quaker school and went to work in the office of a church that just happened to house a little school for about a dozen and a half autistic children. My mornings are filled with phone calls from parishioners alternating with very young boys in near-adult bodies coming in to use the copier, visits from salesmen alternating with the shrieks of anger coming from a pupil who can't communicate her feelings any other way, preparing the bulletins for Sunday alternating with the near constant running of the vacuum cleaner as the students practice occupational therapy; not to mention falling in love with one young girl.
Having my afternoons and all day Friday free was new and fun, but after the newness wore off, it occurred to me that I might volunteer again in the pastoral care department at the hospital. Sister Angela was long gone, but I met up with a very pleasant staff chaplain who was eager to add me to his roster. When we met, he looked at my resume and spoke about another opportunity. I decided to pursue it.
Last week, a lady from the HR department of the hospital phoned to offer me a paid position as "hospital chaplain, casual." After some training, I would be part of the team of relief chaplains, working a few shifts per month as the sole chaplain in the 600+ bed hospital. I would be carrying the trauma beeper, responding to all Codes, performing baptisms for babies not expected to survive, picking up referrals for in-depth pastoral care visits, checking the family waiting rooms, and all kinds of other things. The work would be mostly on weekends and holidays, and it was unclear how frequent the shifts would be or how long they would last. There were unanswered questions, but was I interested? and could I begin sometime in December?
I didn't hesitate for a minute. I'd been getting ready for about twenty-five years.
Then, after I'd chased the tears out of my eyes, I wrote to the outsourcing lady to tell her that yes, of course, she was right.
The school kindly provided for me a number of sessions with an outsourcing professional. A kind, bright and optimistic woman, she helped me revamp my resume, look at the kinds of things I was good at, and how to best sell myself to prospective employers. (Her being a quilter enhanced her likability.) She looked at finding a new job as just a piece of making the adjustment to what had happened. She said to me, "Oh, six months or a year from now, you'll say 'Losing my job at the school was one of the best things that ever happened to me.'" As much as I liked and respected her, my response was, "Baloney."
I jumped at the first job that was offered to me, partly because I was afraid there wouldn't be a second possibility and partly because staying at the school through the end of the academic year had become untenable. We'd met with a financial planner and four mornings a week running the office of a very small church seemed like it would work for us. And so I left the prestigious Quaker school and went to work in the office of a church that just happened to house a little school for about a dozen and a half autistic children. My mornings are filled with phone calls from parishioners alternating with very young boys in near-adult bodies coming in to use the copier, visits from salesmen alternating with the shrieks of anger coming from a pupil who can't communicate her feelings any other way, preparing the bulletins for Sunday alternating with the near constant running of the vacuum cleaner as the students practice occupational therapy; not to mention falling in love with one young girl.
Having my afternoons and all day Friday free was new and fun, but after the newness wore off, it occurred to me that I might volunteer again in the pastoral care department at the hospital. Sister Angela was long gone, but I met up with a very pleasant staff chaplain who was eager to add me to his roster. When we met, he looked at my resume and spoke about another opportunity. I decided to pursue it.
Last week, a lady from the HR department of the hospital phoned to offer me a paid position as "hospital chaplain, casual." After some training, I would be part of the team of relief chaplains, working a few shifts per month as the sole chaplain in the 600+ bed hospital. I would be carrying the trauma beeper, responding to all Codes, performing baptisms for babies not expected to survive, picking up referrals for in-depth pastoral care visits, checking the family waiting rooms, and all kinds of other things. The work would be mostly on weekends and holidays, and it was unclear how frequent the shifts would be or how long they would last. There were unanswered questions, but was I interested? and could I begin sometime in December?
I didn't hesitate for a minute. I'd been getting ready for about twenty-five years.
Then, after I'd chased the tears out of my eyes, I wrote to the outsourcing lady to tell her that yes, of course, she was right.
It's a Long Story . . . Part Five (Perhaps the Penultimate Part!)
I'm a hospital chaplain.
At this point, I have completed the five "shadow shifts" that my nurse manager wanted me to do, and have worked two twenty-four hour shifts solo. I love being a hospital chaplain. I absolutely love it.
My earliest training with Sister Angela has served me well (as have my four units of CPE and even my HELP Line training way back when we were childless and lived in Ohio). I often think of the things that Angela taught our little group of five new volunteers, things like "wear bright colors," and "never try to make it better." She also told us that if we had things weighing on us when we came in to work at the hospital, we should find one of the other chaplains and talk first before going up to the floor.
I've had a longing to reconnect with this mentor, to let her know what has finally become of me, and to try to tell her what an important role she played in my life and in my development. I started searching for her a few weeks ago and kept running into dead ends. Finally, last week, I was provided an email address. I sent an email saying I'd been thinking of her and would like to get together. She wrote back the very next day! She is retired and lives about an hour from where I live. We're scheduled to get together at the end of next month. I can't wait!
My earliest training with Sister Angela has served me well (as have my four units of CPE and even my HELP Line training way back when we were childless and lived in Ohio). I often think of the things that Angela taught our little group of five new volunteers, things like "wear bright colors," and "never try to make it better." She also told us that if we had things weighing on us when we came in to work at the hospital, we should find one of the other chaplains and talk first before going up to the floor.
I've had a longing to reconnect with this mentor, to let her know what has finally become of me, and to try to tell her what an important role she played in my life and in my development. I started searching for her a few weeks ago and kept running into dead ends. Finally, last week, I was provided an email address. I sent an email saying I'd been thinking of her and would like to get together. She wrote back the very next day! She is retired and lives about an hour from where I live. We're scheduled to get together at the end of next month. I can't wait!
It's A Long Story: Part Six
I took the train from my town to somewhere I'd never been before. I was met at the station by someone I had not seen in more than twenty years. We had lunch together. We talked and talked and then went back to her place for a further visit. She lives in a gorgeous place, a retirement center for nuns.
It was Sister Angela, the woman who introduced me to pastoral care and hospital chaplaincy back in 1986. I tried to tell her how important she has been to me, what an impact she made on my life. She didn't seem able to hear it. That didn't surprise me.
I gave her Bill's Baskets. It fits her bed perfectly and is exactly the right colors for her room.
It was such a good day.
