A Veteran’s Tears

I was a fresh new chaplain resident at the VA Medical Center when I met Mr. Miller, a World War II veteran who had been admitted for back surgery after a fall at home. Confused, dismayed, and catheterized, he was confined to a wheelchair and obliged to wear a plastic brace front and back like a piece of body armor. His daughter, a nurse in another hospital, was full of questions for the medical staff. Would her father ever recover his former lucidity and mobility? If not, how would her mother cope with him at home? In his confused state, the family talk about nursing homes and DNR orders was clearly going right over Mr. Miller’s head.

The following week, I learned Mr. Miller was much improved. His medications had been balanced out, and he was now lucid and attentive to what was happening around him. Talk now was of sending him home to complete his recovery there. His daughter was more positive but still concerned for her mother’s ability to cope. When prompted to speak up, Mrs. Miller confessed in a strained voice, “I’m a person of faith. But I must admit I’m afraid.”

Two days later, I was anxious to see Mr. Miller when I came on his ward. As I entered his room, he smiled and motioned me over. “Come in and sit down for a while, chaplain,” he said. His long white hair and goatee beard made me think of Colonel Sanders and fried chicken. But a sudden change came over him as I drew up a chair and sat by his bed. Mr. Miller screwed up his eyes, lifted his face to the ceiling, and began weeping.

“Oh, Mr. Miller, what’s wrong?” I asked in surprise.

Slowly squeezing out the words, he answered between sobs: “I think I’ve finally come to the reality of my situation. My wife’s gonna have to take care of me and I never, ever wanted that. I never wanted that!” With clenched fists he pounded the plastic brace on his chest over and over again.

I let him cry, then said gently “I’m so sorry, Mr. Miller.”

“I’ve never cried before in my life,” he sobbed. “I’m afraid. I was OK until that meeting the other day. Did you hear what my wife said? She said she was afraid. It didn’t hit me until she said she was afraid. She has glaucoma in one eye and a cataract in the other. And now she’s got to take care of me. I never wanted that!” He banged his brace again in frustration. “I wanted to take care of her,” he cried through tears of frustration. “I’ve been thinking about it all night and now I am afraid.” He looked up at me incredulously: “I went all through World War II, was shot at and all, but I was never afraid. And now I am.”

A long silence followed Mr. Miller’s declaration until I finally broke it with a suggestion. “Well maybe you’re afraid now because you’re afraid for someone else, not yourself. For your wife. Do you think that could be it?”

Slowly, Mr. Miller nodded his head. “Yeah, that’s it. I’m afraid I’ll be a burden to her now.” The tears started rolling down his cheeks.

“Have you had a chance to talk to her about these feelings, Mr. Miller?” I asked.

“No. I haven’t seen her yet today. I haven’t had the chance to talk to anybody. In fact, I think God sent you through that door just now so I could tell you,” he said.

I smiled. “Well yes, I think maybe God did.” Mr. Miller calmed down at that thought, lying quietly for a while with his hands folded across the hated plastic body brace. I turned at a sudden noise from the door behind me. Mr. Miller’s wife and son were arriving. I stood up, making ready to leave. “Well, Mr. Miller I’ll go now and leave you with your family, but I can come back later if you’d like to talk some more.”

The old man reached out and put a hand on my arm. “No, I’d like you to stay.” Turning to his wife, Mr. Miller began “Honey, I’ve got something to say to you” then burst into tears. In unison, wife and son cried out “What’s wrong?” and “What’s the matter Pops?” as they rushed to his bedside.

“I just don’t want to be a burden to you,” he squeezed out between sobs. “I was OK until you said what you did at the meeting the other day,” looking at his wife with tears in his eyes. “What did you say, mom?” asked the son. “She said she was afraid,” Mr. Miller sobbed. As his mom leaned over to hug and kiss Mr. Miller, the son looked at me quizzically.

“I was at that meeting, and yes, I did hear that,” I admitted. “But do you know what else I heard? I heard your wife say she is a person of faith.” I stepped back and watched as Mrs. Miller comforted her husband. “Oh, you old silly. That was my thought then. But now I’ve had time to think some more and get help from the rest of the family to figure things out. It’s going to be OK. We’ll manage,” she said, calming and soothing her husband. “We always have and we always will.”

I stood by the hospital bed quietly feeling their burden being lifted. By simply being present to this man in his time of fear and anxiety–in the valley of the shadow of death–I was granted the incredible gift–the grace–of sharing in this moment of healing as they faced their fears together.

© 2013 Chaplain David Pascoe

Where is God?

When tragedies occur like the Boston marathon bombing or the Newtown elementary school shootings, people ask “Where was God when this happened?” I was talking with someone recently who wanted to know “Why does God allow children to suffer?” These are hard questions, ones many of us struggle with every day in the work we do in healthcare.

As a chaplain, I’m sorry to say I don’t have any good answers.  But I am quick to affirm that God is here, suffering with those who suffer. In his book Night, Elie Wiesel, a Jewish concentration camp survivor, describes the execution of several inmates, including a young boy. As the other inmates were forced to look on, someone in the crowd asked: “Where is God now?” Wiesel wrote, “And I heard a voice within me answer him: ‘Where is He? Here He is—He is hanging here on this gallows.’”

I do not believe God is far away from those who suffer in Boston, or Newtown, or the children’s hospital where I work, or anywhere else in the world where evil rears its head. And I often catch glimpses of the God who cares in the faces and hands of those who are quick to respond to another human being in need. I was reminded in an email today from a fellow pediatric chaplain of the words of Mr. Rogers: “When I was a boy and would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’” Let’s always look for the helpers and stand ready to be one of them ourselves whenever our broken world demands. – David

Life Without a Safety Net

Life without a safety net

life without a bridge,

life without a climbing rope upon a narrow ridge.

Life without an answer,

life without a key,

life without a script to follow,

wondering what will be.

Life without a sign post,

life without a chart,

life without a compass

just the leanings of your heart.

Life without assurances guided from above.

Life embraced as mystery is life that’s lived for love.

© David Pascoe, 1987

The Dream

Sometimes, by the grace of God, wounded healers can heal themselves. In a counseling session with my spiritual director many years ago, I remember recounting a dream rich with symbols and images from my past. Yet the meaning at the heart of the dream escaped me.

It is late at night. Snow covers the ground and a storm is raging. I must get back to some place that I know. I am compelled to go now, even though it is night, even though a blizzard is blowing, even though my only means of going is on foot. I set out in the dark, following a half remembered road. I wonder what the people I have left behind will think when they find out what a foolish thing I have done. But I do not care. I have to go on, to go back to this place for reasons unknown to me.

I come to a turn in the road where a high wall runs round the outside of a large estate. The wind whips my clothes back behind me and a map I try to unfold is blown back so I cannot open it. Alone in the wild, white storm, I walk on up a steep road. After a long time, I come to a huddle of buildings on a high place that seems familiar, and I pass the tall tower of a hospital I seem to know. But this is not the place I am seeking.

Down I walk, off the mountain, following a long and winding path, wondering time and again if I have lost my way. Then suddenly, the road opens into the courtyard of an old inn. I see an open door and a warm welcoming glow from a fireside within. A young boy comes out into the yard wearing a work apron and carrying some beer mugs on a tray. I ask him what the time is, thinking it must be very late. “Six o’clock sir,” he says. I can’t believe it. I feel as if I have been walking all night, yet it is only six o’clock in the evening.

Then I look up from the courtyard and see that it is morning. Daylight pours down from a clear blue sky, and I look up at the huddle of houses and the hospital on the mountaintop above me. I see a large white sign with a red cross on the tower of the hospital. The moment is indescribably beautiful. I realize that I have arrived at the place I was seeking. As I look up at the mountain, the building, and that true blue sky, I understand that even though the road was long and winding and the journey dark and storm tossed, the place I was coming to was much nearer than I had known.

“Who is the boy in your dream?” my spiritual director asked in the silence that followed my speaking. “Does he have anything to do with your fear of dying when you were in the hospital as a child?”

For months, we had been working together to uncover the places of wounding that I had been carrying inside for so many years. When he asked the question, I felt a familiar flush of shame on my cheeks. Then the shame gave way to a sudden tingling of awareness. A chill passed through me and the hairs on my arms stood on end as I recognized the boy.

“He’s me.”

The shame was a wall of protection I had built to save him. I had locked him away years ago behind this wall because I thought he was afraid to face the world of feelings and deep emotions. I thought he was afraid. But in my dream, he welcomed me with sustenance at the end of my journey. He didn’t seem scared at all. Suddenly, I knew that I was the one who was afraid. I had built those walls of shame and guilt to protect me. For years, I had told myself there was a wounded child frozen in fear inside me because of my childhood illness. That day, I learned it was not true.

“Close your eyes,” my advisor said. “Let the boy come to you. Look at him and listen to what he has to say.”

For once, I was able to let go and let the boy within me speak. As tears welled in my eyes I listened to these words from the lips of the boy in the apron with the tray of mugs.

“Everything is alright now,” he said. “Just be yourself. I love you, and you can and should love yourself. Welcome home!”

As a healthcare chaplain, I meet all kinds of people who are lost in one way or another just like I was, wounded by the past, imprisoned by shame and fear. I try my best to help them hear those same comforting words I heard that day: “You are loved. Welcome home.” This, I believe, makes their living and their dying easier – and their final homecoming sweeter.

© 2013 Chaplain David Pascoe

Healing of Memories

Some events in our childhood leave wounds we carry well into our adult lives. Can we ever be free of the painful memories of those events?

I once received the blessing of a healing of childhood memories from a rather unlikely source. Several years ago, at a time in my life when I felt very vulnerable emotionally and spiritually, I attended a men’s weekend retreat in a small town in southern Idaho. One of the spiritual leaders, a serene, middle-aged Methodist pastor named Betty, spoke compellingly one morning of the ministry of healing of memories. I was intrigued, sat by her at lunch, and peppered her with questions about this technique for helping people heal from their past. The more she talked, the more I knew I wanted – needed – this kind of healing. Betty agreed to help me, so we met later that day in the quiet afternoon shadows of the sanctuary in the town’s little old Presbyterian church.

“How it works is like this,” Betty said. “I want you to go back into the past and relive the moment when the hurt happened. Recall this moment in as much detail as you can, as hard as this might be. Then allow Jesus to come in, and watch what he says and does. Tell me everything that happens. I’ll be sitting here right beside you praying. If you get uncomfortable, you can stop any time.” And so we began.

I am ten years old, in the children’s hospital in the North of England, suffering from a perforated intestine. I’m lying in bed in a cold, sterile ward whose walls are painted green and white. On my bed is a bedspread covered with nursery rhyme figures, also in green and white. I suppose it’s there to add a human touch for sick children, but it just makes the place feel more institutional then ever. The bed frame is cold, hard steel. My mother comes in, bustling, laughing, chattering away as usual to the nurses. She brings me presents, lots of presents that I haven’t asked for. But she can’t just be with me in my fear and pain. I am afraid I am going to die.

Then Jesus comes into my room. He’s the Good Shepherd in his long robe and with his shepherd’s crook in his hand. He comes over to my bed and tells me he has been looking for me. “Don’t be afraid,” he says, then he reaches down and puts his hand on my head. With his other arm. he reaches round and embraces my mother, holding us both at the same time. Then Jesus walks over to the double-hung window and pushes it wide open. The breeze blows in, billowing the curtains and blowing away the harsh hospital smells. He turns and gestures for me to come over and join him. I slip out of bed and walk to his side. “Look,” he says. “I’ll always hold this window open for you. Now, come up!” and he motions me to climb up on to the windowsill. “Now go,” he says. “It’s alright.” He wants me to climb through the window and go. I look back at my mother sitting by the bed, and he says, “She’s just fine where she is. She loves you and she’s just doing her best for you. You go!”

I jump out of the window down to the grass below. It’s a beautiful, bright sunny day. The grass rolls into green hills ahead of me as I start to walk away. I look back at the hospital and I see Jesus still standing by the window, waving me on. I walk away alone but realize that around my neck I am wearing a cross he has given me.

Back in real time, I described all of this to Betty as we sat side by side in the gathering evening shadows of the church. She asked me to imagine a future time when I would be with my mother and to bring Jesus into that. I closed my eyes.

I see myself sitting with my mother in the front room of my home in Salt Lake City, and Jesus is there too. He says to us both “I was with you before, but you did not know it. Now you know.”

Then Betty asked if there was another time of childhood illness I could recall. I told her there was.

I am eight years old. I’m in the same hospital as before, but this time I have a nasty, sometimes fatal childhood disease called Henoch-Schönlein Purpura. My body is covered in bruises from bursting blood vessels and my legs are paralyzed. All the doctors can do is keep me in hospital for observation. Waves of pain sweep over me, starting at my head and traveling right down my body and out my feet and toes. I can’t bear the pain, and I want to shut everyone and everything out. I clench the blanket in both fists and pull it over my head as the pain starts.

Now Jesus appears as a gentle presence in the darkness beside me. “I cannot take the pain away. I can only be with you in it,” he says. “But remember, I am with you always. Come out from under that blanket. There is no need to hide. I will always be with you. You will never be alone.”

When I was done telling her all these things, Betty told me those memories were now healed. “I have never known a case when these types of memories come back,” she said gently laying her hand on mine.

She was right. The memories of those childhood illnesses were healed. But the scars remained. As Henri Nouwen writes:

Nobody escapes being wounded. We all are wounded people, whether physically, emotionally, mentally, or spiritually. The main question is not “How can we hide our wounds?” so we don’t have to be embarrassed, but “How can we put our woundedness in the service of others?” When our wounds cease to be a source of shame, and become a source of healing, we have become wounded healers.

© 2013 Chaplain David Pascoe

Presence Meditation

Presence

Psalm 46:10

Be still and know that I am God

Be still and know that I am

Be still and know

Be still

Be

In the beginning, before God made the universe and all that is in it, God was. The presence of God – the Divine essence – therefore permeates all of existence.

So it is in our being that we are most like the Divine, not in our doing. We share this commonality with the whole of creation. The essence of a tree, a sparrow, a mighty mountain or a tiny grain of sand bears the fingerprints of the One who created it.

Human beings, molded from the clay of the earth, bear those fingerprints too. In the deepest part of our selves. In our essence. In our souls. Our very being is the handiwork of God.

Yet, we are creatures both gifted and cursed with a mind that never ceases to question, to answer, and to drive us to “doing” in response. So we forget that the Divine essence in us is a constant presence. And we think that we, who are made in the image of God, are most like God when we are “doing” – making, constructing, planning, organizing, problem solving.

“Be still and know that I am God,” the wisdom of Scripture invites us.

In the stillness of being we find the certainty of knowing that God is.

People in distress are often no longer able to be still. Their lives have become a frantic whirl of problems to be solved. They have lost control of their everyday routine, their normal coping resources, their emotions. They seek God and find only questions that cannot be answered. Why me? Why my child? Where are you God? What have I done to make you punish me like this?

What they need most is the presence of someone who will share this moment in time with them. Who will hear their story and validate their experience. Who will listen without judgment, without suggesting solutions, without correcting their worldview. Who will bear witness to their deepest emotions and allow them the space to explore and find their own pathway through the dark valley back to the light.

A simple presence, compassionately offered. No agenda. No pat answers. No magic formulas. Just one human being choosing to “be” with another.

Be

Be still

Be still and know

Be still and know that I am

Be still and know that I am God

© 2012 Chaplain David Pascoe