The past three weeks of chaplaincy have taught me a twofold lesson regarding the word "no." First, I have an inability to say it when someone asks something of me. For example, although the CPE supervisor advised all of the chaplains not to give out our phone numbers, I gave my number to the secretary on the floor of the ICU, who asked for it when I introduced myself as the chaplain for the unit. That very day she called me with a pastoral care emergency. The reason for the caution around giving out our numbers is that 1) we can be paged, and 2) the secretaries may assume that we're available 24/7, which is not the case.
On the flip side, I have learned not to immediately accept "no" for an answer. There have been a few occasions where I have introduced myself to patients as the chaplain and received a polite "no thank you" in response to my invitation to talk. Patients have all sorts of pre- and misconceptions of what it is I'm there to do, which is not to judge, debate, or convert them. I don't enter a room with an agenda, but rather seek to meet patients where they are, present a friendly face, and offer to talk about their concerns. The conversation is neither aimed nor aimless but flows naturally toward what my supervisor calls the "recovery of soul."
Just yesterday I entered the room of an elderly woman who initially told me that she didn't want to talk. Rather than accept her refusal, which probably would have been my instinct a few weeks ago, I just kept talking. I can't remember what I said or asked, but it became clear within a few seconds that she actually wanted to talk but probably assumed that I had come to her with an agenda. When it became clear to her that I came into the room unarmed, she put down her defenses and we talked a good 15 minutes. At one point she even said to me, "You're going to win people with that smile."
If true, that bodes well for me, because as draining as this job is, I can't seem to stop smiling.
The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis is not among my favorite books, but in it he does highlight one eternal truth: some people prefer a self-inflicted, self-contained misery to an experience of grace. As an extremely brief synopsis, the main character is taken on an eschatological bus ride, during which he meets many fellow travelers, each of whom carries a perpetual cloud of cantankerousness over themselves. The bus departs from a land of dreary grays and eventually arrives at what is basically the Microsoft Windows wallpaper--rolling hills, green fields, blue skies--rich colors and lush scenery all around. Despite the improvement in their surroundings, his fellow travelers continue to find things to complain about. In fact, their bodies cannot physically adjust to the beauty of their new surroundings. While wandering through the greenery they discover that they are, in fact, ghosts who lack corporeal bodies. They cannot acclimate to the weightiness, the substantiveness of this new rea...
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