Maureen and Sean* – Part II

I don’t know that I’ve ever felt pressure to say anything during a hospital visit. I don’t go to hospitals to say things to people; I go to hospitals to be with people. Oh, I also go to hospitals to pray with people. To listen to people, to be with people, to pray with people – that’s what I do in hospitals.

People in my parishes have had the idea that if they visit someone that they have to have answers – where did that idea come from? It’s a debilitating thought because it stops people from being with people; it hinders people from being with people who need people to be with them. This is exacerbated by the business model of clergy and churches in that pastors are first expected to operate a successful church, not to care for their people. Just as salespeople are measured by their sales numbers, so pastors are measured by how many people are in the pews and how much they’re giving – how did we come to accept that idea?

I like to take people with me on visits because I want them to see how to be with people; listen, then pray – pretty basic. We think we have to “do” something when we’re with people; we think we have to make things happen – that’s nonsense. When we think we have to “do” something we usually end up doing the wrong thing and making things worse – people in pain, people in uncertainty, people facing the unknown, first need us to be with them; let God do the work, we just need to be available. Oh, and did I mention that we should pray with people?

Sean was dozing when I walked into his room, so I just stood for a minute or two until he sensed someone there.

“Hi Sean, I’m Bob Withers, John’s pastor. He told me you were here so I thought I’d come see how you’re doing.”

“I’m doing better today. When they brought me in here a couple days ago I’d lost about 25 pounds and was weak as a fawn. I guess I’m still not that great but I’m better than I was.”

Sean and I talked for a while. I asked him about his family and business and how long he’d been sick. Nurses and aides and cafeteria people moved in and out of the room as they tend to do during hospital visits. I excused myself for a few minute when an aide helped Sean with the bedpan drill. After 20 minutes or so I knew it was time to go and that meant that it was time to pray.

“Sean, I’d like to pray with you – is that okay?”

“Sure.” (What did you expect him to say?)

I placed my hand on Sean’s shoulder and prayed for his family, his health, his healing, his business, and that our heavenly Father would draw Sean and his family close to Him, that they would know the incredible love and care of Jesus Christ.

Listen, ask questions if you need to in order to have things to listen to, be with people, pray with people; those are the basics. Pretty simple, yet we don’t do them enough.

Right after I left Sean picked up the phone and called John…  

*The names and some details have been changed for various protections, but no change has been material to the actual story.

Maureen and Sean* – Part I

“My boss is in the hospital, he’s pretty sick.”

“What’s going on with him?” I asked.

“Looks like Lyme disease,” John replied.

“I’ll go visit him tomorrow,” I said.

I’d only been in town a couple of weeks and was just finding my way around geographically and feeling my way around relationally. A small town with a new pastor, a new pastor with a small town; what are the people like? What is the pastor like? How does this “getting to know you” dance work? There weren’t any lectures on this in seminary.

I hadn’t met Sean yet. By all accounts he was a hulk of a man, a heavy machinery operator who owned his own equipment – self-reliant, self-sufficient, making his own way, making his own way his way. He employed John, one of my parishioners, and a couple of other men – when the work was there things were good – when it wasn’t – which usually meant the winter, things were not so good. One thing was certain, Sean’s business depended on Sean…and Sean’s family depended on Sean. If Sean had Lyme disease that could be a problem, that could be a very big problem.

Meeting people and getting to know them was my job – that’s what pastors do, or at least that’s what this pastor did. It’s kind of ironic in retrospect, for I’m an introvert and I used to be painfully shy and introverted. The idea of walking into a hospital room to meet someone I didn’t’ know would have been terrifying to me in one stage of life, but hey, you gotta do what you gotta do and I’d pretty much gotten over the painful part of introversion a number of years ago – though I guess I’ll always have my moments.

The next day I drove the forty miles to the medical center in Middletown; this would be my first visit to the hospital and I wondered what it would be like. I wondered what Sean would think of a strange pastor coming to visit him. I knew Sean had likely been raised Roman Catholic, after all his name was Sean Coughlin and we lived in a region in which Roman Catholics made up over 50% of the population; I hoped he wouldn’t mind a Protestant pastor dropping in on him for a few minutes. This would be a good opportunity to meet the employer of one of my congregants; more importantly, it would be a good opportunity to share the grace of Jesus Christ.  

*The names and some details have been changed for various protections, but no change has been material to the actual story.

The Energy of Anxiety

I’ve been reminded this past month that our society operates on anxiety. From my morning commute to many of my business interactions, anxiety reigns in place of thoughtful consideration, in place of reasoned response, in place of long-term vision, and in place of leadership. And what do we reap as a result of our collective and individual anxiety? Fragmentation in all aspects of life – from the Eurozone crises to road rage to reactionary domestic policy to broken families and other broken relationships to poor business decisions. Anxiety also destroys truth for anxiety pressures a society, a business, a family, an individual, to lie for the sake of relieving pressure – the tyrannical and unrelenting pressure of anxiety assaults the ethics and morality of society until spin and lies are normative.

We no longer value reflection and context, we value trivia, we value data – there is an underlying value assumption behind the popularity of games such as Jeopardy – games that stress data over contextual understanding and thoughtfulness. (After writing this sentence I read a letter from Dorothy L. Sayers to the BBC in which she declines to participate in a Jeopardy-type show because of this very problem – and the letter was written in the early 1940’s!.)

The anxiety of society is to us today as the floodwaters were to those living in Noah’s time – both engulf a generation.

Isaiah writes: Behold a king will reign righteously and princes will rule justly. Each will be like a refuge from the wind and a shelter from the storm, like streams of water in a dry country, like the shade of a huge rock in a parched land, (Isaiah 32:1-2). Am I a refuge in Christ for those around me? Is the church a refuge from the anxiety that is sweeping over our friends, families, neighbors and coworkers? Or, is the church fostering and contributing to the anxiety? Is the church connected to the power grid of the world – or are we resting in Jesus Christ?