Life After The Slammer: A journey of inspiration, insight and oddity. 

 

For just over five years Geraldine was involved in bringing creativity, hope and inspiration into Maryland prisons and jails, first as a volunteer and then, for almost two and a half years as a chaplain at the Maryland Correctional Training Center – Maryland’s largest men’s prison.

Since then she has been catapulted into the world of professional storytelling and speaking, traveling throughout the US and as far away as New Zealand bringing programs that cause people to laugh and think. She has performed everywhere from people's living rooms to being a featured performer at the National Festival in Jonesborough, TN - the jewel in the crown of the storytelling world.

Join Geraldine as she writes about her life after hanging up her chaplain's hat and taking to the storytelling road.

Sunday
Jul052020

Pandemic Parables: Both Sides

Pandemic Parables: Both Sides
Sunday July 5th 2020


As the old Joni Mitchell song says, I’ve been looking at life from both sides in the hospital in Frederick, Maryland where I am working as a Resident Chaplain until the end of August. I have been observing anew that people can see exactly the same thing, but from a completely different perspective.

Take July the Fourth - for example. This was my fourteenth year to celebrate Independence Day as a proud, naturalized American Citizen. Even with all its current challenges - opportunities - I love this nation, and I am grateful to be able to call it home. However, growing up in Britain, July the Fourth was no different from any other day, of course. And even though my first degree, from England’s Bristol University, was in history, the only reference I heard about the Revolutionary War was: “Mad King George lost the farm...”

History is written by the victors and we definitely lost that war.

A Pennsylvania-born fellow chaplain at the hospital, who spent several years living in England, told me that when over there she had a special ritual every Independence Day. With a reference to the incident that sparked the Revolutionary War, she would hand out tea bags to her bemused friends. As she did she’d quote the words spoken at the Boston Tea Party by the Sons of Liberty as they threw a whole shipment of tea into the harbor.

“No Tea! No Tea! Down with King George.”

Incredibly no one responded: “Off with her head!”

My brother, who has been a good naturalized citizen for a lot longer than me, jokes that July the Fourth is England’s Thanksgiving Day. Why? Because that is when they got rid of the Americans.
Ba Da Boom...

Depending on what side of the pond you stand, Independence Day looks completely different. I am grateful to have seen it from both sides now.

I’ve been seeing other things in the hospital from both sides recently.

Babies for example.

It was the same fellow chaplain who told me of the preparations that were being made in the birthing center at the end of last week.

All the newly hatched babies receive a beautiful, soft, white cap to keep their precious tiny heads warm. The caps are made with love in every stitch by members of our incredible hospital auxiliary. On Friday a nurse was preparing these caps for Independence Day births by threading red, white, and blue ribbons imprinted with stars through their soft fabric.
Those babies will be patriotic from the getgo!

Other aren’t so fortunate.

On Friday, not long after those caps were finished being adorned, there was a pediatric code blue. This means that a child under the age of eighteen is being brought into the hospital dangerously close to death. I’m the chaplain for the Emergency Department. When I got there I discovered the code blue was a baby, a few months old, and a team was desperately working behind a closed curtain to save the child’s life.

There was a lull in the normal frenetic atmosphere of the ED. Staff members were looking towards the curtain either praying or willing that baby to survive.

I joined the small cluster of nurses and social workers that I knew well. We were waiting for the parents to arrive.

“When I heard the code, before we knew the age of the child, I phoned up my husband and asked if our son was OK,” one of the nurses said in a voice hardly above a whisper. He said, you just phoned ten minutes ago and I told you he was doing good. Why would things be different now?”
She shrugged her shoulders.
“I had to know,” she said nodding towards the curtain, “because things can change so fast.”

One mother’s relief is another’s nightmare.

The police arrived. Depending on whether the parents live in the city of Frederick or the County either the police or sheriff’s department will have jurisdiction.

Whenever a child pediatric code blue is called, particularly for a baby, and the patient doesn’t have a medical history that would warrant such a call, the law is involved. A social worker told me that an officer will often drive parents to the hospital.
“How kind of them,” I said. “It must be difficult driving when you are so concerned about your child.”
The social worker gave me a knowing look. “They also want to keep an eye on them to make sure they’ll be available to be interviewed later.”

I looked towards the officers, who usually wait quietly to one side until the medical intervention has ceased before asking the parents questions. Sometimes, as in this case, one or more will be behind the curtain watching the team as the baby hovers between life and death.

One of the main tenets of the Clinical Pastoral Education course that I am taking is the saying “the patient is the book.”
In other words you are plunged into the real life of the hospital. You learn about how to handle situations correctly, as well as managing your own emotions that are triggered by that situation, afterwards, either in class or in a weekly individual supervisory session.

Months ago I misread a situation with a baby. I was standing outside the same curtained room flanked by a social worker and a young sheriff’s officer. We waited in silence as a medical team worked on the other side of the cloth divider. The parents had already arrived and were in there watching those incredible medical professionals save their child’s life.

I am a feeler, and I felt tension and deep emotion coming from the officer by my side.
“Is everything all right?” I said to him quietly.
“Yes,” he said too quickly. “Of course it is.” His professional veneer was firmly in place.

“I have my chaplain’s hat on,” I said. “So I was just checking. And I’m praying.”

We both carried on staring at the closed curtain. I felt some of the tension ooze out of him. Then, without moving he said softly. “I have a kid at home the same age. This one is hard for me.”

Moments later he walked away out through the stretcher entrance doors to get some fresh air, and he didn’t return for a long time.

There were several other officers in the ED department at the time, one in plain clothes. I stepped into the curtained room to be with the parents at the same moment that they were coming out. They said that yes, they would like to talk, and certainly wanted to pray but they didn’t want to go into a private room to do so. The distraught mother said she wanted to be as close to her baby as possible, but they had both needed a quick respite. The mother was in tears, the father looked stunned. So we prayed in the hallway.

Words came out of my mouth during that prayer that surprised me. They bypassed my brain. I heard myself praying that the baby would not suffer permanent damage from whatever had happened. That miraculous healing would take place. That the child would recover from trauma and be well.
Soon after I said amen the mother headed back behind the curtain, and the plain clothed sheriff’s officer politely told the father that he had some routine questions he needed to ask him.

I went to the third floor to see other patients but came down a little later to check on the family. They had already left. A nurse emerged from the same room they had been in.
“The child lived and has been flown to Children’s Hospital in DC,” she said. “It was a brain bleed. We found several signs that there was physical abuse, and it had been going on for some time, previously broken bones and the like. The law will investigate more heavily now.”

I had misread the young sheriff officer’s reaction. He clearly knew of the possible abuse situation, whereas I had no idea. It had never crossed my mind. It was my first pediatric code. I now realize he suspected the worst. And he was right.

A couple of weeks later I saw the father’s picture in the paper with an article giving the medical details from both hospitals. He had been arrested on suspected child abuse and was being held without bail at the County Detention Center.

I have no idea if the trial has taken place. We don’t know the end of patients’ stories unless we read about them in the paper. (I scour the obituaries every day hoping not to see the names of my more vulnerable patients...)

But I did find out one further piece of information about the father. While we were standing outside the same curtained room with a different baby last Friday, a social worker mentioned the abuse case. “I saw a picture of him in the paper before he was arrested. He was at Children’s and was holding the baby and smiling. He had started a GoFundMe for medical expenses for the child and had raised well over twenty thousand dollars...”

My fists clenched, and I understood with sudden clarity why the officer had to step outside and get fresh air.
I almost had to do the same.

One of the medical personnel came out from the curtain. The ICU nurse by my side had a quick word with her before the team member hurried back in.

“Oh, Lord! Let this baby live!” I said. My friend, the ICU nurse, a woman with the most enormous, loving heart, said: “I’m seeing things from the other side. I suspect there will be severe, permanent damage, and so my prayer is for a peaceful, gentle death.”

Minutes later her prayer was answered.

The parents arrived and were ushered into a private room with a truly wonderful social worker, and the doctor who had done the surgery. With the parent’s permission, I slipped into an empty seat.

The doctor gave the news of their baby’s death with compassion coming out of his pores. This couple was in shock. Tears slid down their faces, the mother shook in silent grief. The father asked questions. How could a heart attack happen to a child barely months old? The doctor answered every question with great kindness before leaving. The couple was young, a little awkward together. The father finally moved over to sit next to the mother to hold her. She fell into his arms and a high pitched wail came out of her mouth.

It was the sound of a heart breaking.

On Independence Day this year that baby was free. Returned to the One who had made him far too few months before, healed now, and eternally loved.

His brief presence on earth changed the lives of that young couple forever. Their grief will go on for a lot longer than their son lived.

In a much more joyous way, great change was brought to the lives of several other mothers this weekend as they held close a baby wearing a white cap festooned with July the Fourth ribbons.

When I think of that contrast of life and death over this holiday weekend, it is with the soundscape of the Joni Mitchell song “Both Sides” playing in my mind.
Particularly its lyrics:

“I've looked at life from both sides now
From win and lose and still somehow
It's life's illusions I recall
I really don't know life at all.”

This year of 2020 has shown us all that none of us know what will be around the next corner. Who would have ever thought that churches and restaurants would be closed? July Fourth parades and fireworks canceled - or at least severely curtailed?
And that a pandemic would sweep through the earth changing our way of lives; closing our institutions; postponing life events: separating us from family?

Looking at this year from both sides though, who would have thought that we would have so much time to clean our houses?
Bake sourdough, banana, and in my case, pumpkin bread?
To do jigsaws?
To eat together - in some of our cases - virtually?
To be the giver and receiver of a myriad kindnesses - out-workings of caring and love?

In this pandemic season we all have seen both sides of life and love and fear. As the Good Book says where there is darkness there is also great light. John 1:5 declares

“The light shines in the darkness and the darkness can never extinguish it.”

Hurrah!

So even though, like Joni Mitchell, we might not know life at all, certainly not life in this new Coronavirus era, we can count on a few things. That the good we do, the kindness we spread, has more of an impact on pushing back the darkness than we can ever imagine.

So carry on baking, and gifting that comfort;
Knitting socks and sending them to surprised delighted recipients;
Reading a book to a child, yours or others, in person or over the web.
Write a note, send a card;
Leave tomatoes from your garden on someone’s door step,
Phone a long lost friend.

In a season when at times we feel powerless, let us push back the darkness with those things that are in our power to do. Something that might be simple for us, yet might mean the world to someone else. As simple as threading a ribbon through a baby cap.

When we join our pinpricks of light, of goodness together we will have a mighty light.

Our future might still be uncertain. We do not know what it will bring. But of one thing we can count on. The God of light and love will be there rejoicing at how we have fought fear and spread goodness one small action at a time.

How we have spread His light.

With great delight he will provide for us abundantly. That is His promise.
So whatever it holds. No matter what side we look at it from.
The future will be good.

 

Thursday
Jul022020

Pandemic Parables: Regression 

Pandemic Parables: Regression
Thursday July 2nd 2020


Some wonderful backward steps have been going on in the hospital in Frederick, Maryland, where I am working as a Resident Chaplain until the end of August. As of yesterday there are only five confirmed Coronavirus patients in the hospital.

That’s it!

There is no one under investigation, and one hundred and ninety-one virus positive patients have been released so far. This is the lowest number of Covid-19 patients in the hospital since the very early days of the pandemic.

My insides did a somersault of joy when I read that news.
(But the chaplains are praying fervently for medical centers in other parts of the country where Covid-19 cases are on the upsurge.)

Meanwhile in our hospital there has been a dialing back – a regression – on other fronts also.
The gowns!

It is widely known that there has been a major shortage of personal protective equipment (PPE), particularly disposable gowns, throughout the country during this pandemic. (It is one of the main reasons that chaplains have not been able to go into any isolation rooms – whether the patient has Covid-19 or any other type of virus.)
There has been such a lack that some places resorted to having their medical staff wear trash bags to enter Coronavirus patients’ rooms.

Horror upon horrors!

Thanks to our wonderful volunteers stepping up and making gowns, and a supply of hairdresser style long capes that seemed to miraculously appear, that never happened at our hospital.

Work has been going on feverishly behind the scenes to source disposable gowns. Yesterday we discovered via an update email that the Procurement Team has been successful. The hospital now has – wait for it – one hundred and seventy thousand disposable isolation gowns in their supply chain! They use about a thousand gowns a day, apparently, which means that they have a hundred and seventy-day supply.
Because of that they are going to start transitioning back to disposable gowns.

The email also said that the hospital was in the process of stocking “…a year supply of medical grade reusable gowns. These will be stored for use in the event of an unforeseen supply chain disruption, similar to what we experienced with COVID-19”.

The inventiveness, dedication, and ingenuity of the senior leadership has been inspirational to behold. We have been well led during this season.

An aside.
A large placard on a stand appeared outside the offices used by the CEO and the other top brass a couple of weeks ago. Their doors are on the second floor abutting a corridor with high foot traffic. It is a main artery to the staff parking garage.
The sign says: “Thank you to our Senior Leaders. Your exemplary leadership has encouraged and inspired everyone at Frederick Health.”
I smile at it when I pass by several times a day, and always nod in agreement. 
Back to the gowns!

I had the email at the top of my mind when I walked past the volunteer conference room with its twenty-four seater, enormous, oval wooden table. There was the volunteer director and her assistant folding gown upon reusable gown that had been delivered early that morning crumpled from the makeshift downstairs laundry. They have been doing this for weeks.

“Your folding days are coming to an end I understand,” I said.

Without missing a beat in her folding rhythm the director said: “Yes! There are far fewer gowns today, and hopefully there will be less each day as they soil the stock they have and transition into their disposable supply.”
Pointing to the stack of neatly folded gowns she continued: “Our incredible volunteers have made seven thousand of them. Well almost. They have all been cut out and some are still being sown. They will be stored as the email said, in case we ever need them in a similar crisis in the future.

May that never happen!

I was amazed by the sheer volume! “Seven thousand!”

“Yes,” said the director, “Many of the volunteers originally thought they were going to make cloth masks but they were presented with boxes and boxes of plastic, elastic, and glue and were told they were assembling face shields instead. And they pitched right in and did so. And then we came to the shortage of the gowns. As I told you before, someone in the department who is a master seamstress designed the prototype gown, made the pattern, and passed it on to those volunteers who can sew. They are over in the Annex right now. Still sewing!”

“I am so impressed!” I said.

The director nodded, smiling. Yes,” she responded. They want to get every last gown finished before they leave. Most of the team are in their 80’s but there is one spry young thing in her 40’s. They decided to use this time as an opportunity to teach the community how to sew. So we put out advertisements everywhere publicizing free sewing classes. Guess how many we got?”

I had no idea.

“One! One person responded,” said the director. Well two really. The person who wanted to learn was under eighteen so she had to come with her mother.”
Such a missed opportunity! But I sympathized. I never learned to sew because I was always scared of the sounds the machines made…

Once again I marveled at the folded stacks of gowns, and the selfless industriousness, and dedication of the team that had come together to create such needed largess.

Then I remembered that my nurse practitioner friend told me that when she had a meeting in the new hospital annex, she passed by the cafeteria. Peeking in, she was astonished to see elderly ladies socially distancing and sewing feverishly.
“I felt like I’d stumbled into a secret sweat shop,” she said. Except they were all laughing and having a marvelous time in front of their machines while chatting up a storm. I had no idea what was going on until later.”

The intensity of work that has gone on by dedicated volunteers over the last few months is extraordinary.

I asked the director how we could ensure that no one forgets. Especially now that we are regressing back to the way we were – at least as far as gowns are concerned.

“Well!” she said. “The head volunteer, who has been leading this effort, is talented in so many ways. And it turns out that one of her passions is scrap booking. So she has photographed and documented this whole Coronavirus volunteer aid program step by step from the first days.”

That’s when a thought hit me. A friend of mine, whom I love dearly, is on the library board of the Smithsonian. She told me that they were looking for diaries and descriptions of everyday life during the Coronavirus. They will become first hand sources for researchers in the future.

I excitedly told the director about the Smithsonian project. 
"Wouldn’t it be incredible if they took the scrapbook” She exclaimed.
“Yes!” I declared. "Lord! Let it be. Let it be.”
“That will put a pep in the volunteers’ steps” said the director. “Understandably they are exhausted. They are starting to fade. The thought of their work inspiring future generations will delight them to the last stitch!”

I walked away grinning at the thought and continued doing my daily rounds.
I began thinking about the word “regression.” We might be able to go backwards when it comes to gowns – although the hospital has a current stock unlike anything they had before – but we can’t go back in other things.

Our realities have changed.

In many ways we will have to let go of the certainties of the past to grasp hold of a still uncertain future.

It reminds me of a time, many years ago when I worked as one of the sixteen pastors at what was then the largest church in England. The senior pastor had been a ballet dancer with the Royal Ballet. In other words he had danced at the highest levels and was incredibly flexible. One time he illustrated a point during another staff member’s sermon. The central verse was Philippians 3:13 “…Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead.”

The Senior Pastor leapt on the stage in his well-cut suit and moved one leg back as though it was determined to stay in the past, and let the other go forward as though embracing the future. Much to the delight of the thousand seater multinational church he ended up doing the splits. It illustrated beautifully, and with no material tearing, that we can’t go forward if we are still attached to the past.

I proved that to myself in a far less elegant way the other day. I was racing out of the office when my jacket got caught on the door. The jacket was made from stretchy material and so I plunged forward before being jerked to a standstill. Laughing, I literally let myself off the hook, released what was holding me back, before going onward. 

We have all endured so much during this Coronavirus season. Summer is now here and we long for the rituals of past years.

Cook outs. Fireworks. Gatherings of family and friends.

We want to go to restaurants, and theaters, and cinemas, and not have to worry about infecting others or being infected. We want to go back to an easier simpler time.
A few months ago.

Back when there were certainties, and income, and what now seems like relative peace of mind.

But we can’t. That land of yesterday doesn’t exist anymore.
The future is uncertain. But even so, may we embrace whatever is coming with a sense of anticipation. An adventure in the making.
May we know deep inside the marrow of our bones that as things have worked out in the past, so they will in the future.

Our worlds are being shaken, and shaken, and shaken some more. May the dust, and grit, and grime of our lives fall through the Divine Miner’s sieve leaving nuggets of gold behind.

May we remember who we are, and why we were created. What gives us joy.
And may we have the courage to pursue that wholeheartedly. In a way, regress to the real version of ourselves, before we were forced to put on emotional armor to survive.
And we may we know with great certainty, and in new ways, daily – that the God who made us to be fulfilled, and creative, and living life abundantly, is there in our future. And that He, the Lord, high above all other lords, is longing for us to finally become all that He created us to be.
So whatever form our tomorrows take. No matter what has been stripped away.
What remains will be good.

 

Monday
Jun292020

Pandemic Parables: The Right Thing

Pandemic Parables: The Right Thing
Monday June 29, 2020


Yet another change, a scaling back, happened today in the hospital in Frederick, MD where I am working as a Resident Chaplain until the end of August. The friendly faces that for the past few weeks took your temperature as you entered the building have all gone.
They were the ones who cheerily greeted both staff, same day surgery patients, and the few visitors that are allowed. They asked about any possible Covid-19 symptoms, and gave out colored bands that went around wrists or badges to prove you had passed under their vigilant gaze.

They are no longer.
They have been replaced by a machine.
Ah, the way of the world!

From today staff have to take their temperature at home and stay there if it is 100 degrees or more. Before starting to work they must swipe their badge against a newly installed reader to attest that they have indeed taken their temperature that day and are free from Coronavirus symptoms. Anyone who is not staff will have temperatures checked by the security officers at the main foyer, which is the only entrance that is open, besides the Emergency Department.

So first thing this morning I took my temperature. It was normal.
There was a nurse sitting by the new check in device to guide people through the change.

“What happens if people swipe without having taking their temperature?” I asked.
“Well,” she said, “they will have lied.”
“Do you think they will?” I said.
“Oh yes, people do.” She responded matter-of-factly. “Of course that is not the right thing to do.”

Later I was in Same Day Surgery responding to a Code Blue – called when someone is in danger of dying. The teamwork of the medical staff, their intense dedication, never ceases to amaze me.

I prayed. They worked. The patent lived. Glory!

Afterwards, when the adrenaline had dispersed I overheard a conversation between a couple of nursing assistants who had been observing this medical miracle.

“Did you take your temperature this morning? Really?”
“Yes, I did,” responded the other nurse just behind a curtain and out of my sight. There was a long pause. And then she added, “I really did take it, but after I did, it broke. I managed to break the thermometer!”

I have a feeling that this taking your temperature at home development might not go as smoothly as first envisioned.

In the meantime, the front foyer seems peculiarly empty without the lovely rotating teams who used to sit beside the white, ginormous space divider, greeting people on their way in and out from work.

Let me tell you about that divider.

Several weeks ago, a long, tall, white, narrow, temporary construction structure – a Goliath-sized divider - with a tent like ceiling, sprung up in the hospital’s airy main foyer. It appeared almost overnight like a giant field mushroom and snaked from the covered car park entrance to the main front door. It is still there.

At the time I thought it would have something to do with providing a private space for temperature testing. This was a couple of days before the procedure began. But no, as I was to discover, the screening happened at a station in the shadow of the behemoth.
The screening that is now no more.

For ages I had no idea what that divider was dividing or why.
Then I discovered that a shoulder height, decorative wall that will be topped with plants is being built. Thus ensuring that all visitors and staff with have to pass by the main security desk on their way into the hospital. No more taking a short cut through the Same Day Surgery waiting area.

The project is shrouded in a construction shell to keep debris contained. Unfortunately, this doesn’t stop the intense building noise that seems to happen sporadically.

A few days ago one of the wonderful hospice nurses, that I admire so much, grabbed me.
“I need you,” she said. “Come with me to the foyer.”

It turned out that an older patient had died, and his fairly young offspring wanted to sign the necessary papers without entering a clinical area.

Not everyone likes hospitals.

These young people were shaken. They had seen their father the day before. They knew he was near the end. Everything that needed to be said, was said. He let them know he loved them. Was interested in them and what they were doing.
That’s how they wanted to remember him.

Still, they were grateful when I suggested praying for them, and also committing their father’s spirit to the Lord. We settled in to pray. A hush came over the group. I was about to open my mouth and let out the first word when ferocious drilling and clattering started up from the white edifice directly behind us.

“Wait one moment,” declared the nurse, her face above her mask displaying grim determination.
The noise was so loud we could hardly hear her.
“I’ll get that to stop.”

Much to the amazement of the security guards, the temperature testers, and all in the foyer, she succeeded. This nurse is a tall, elegant, willowy figure, with beautifully coiffed hair, white before its time. She swept across the space, found a door into the construction shell, and swung it open. Then with a finger slash across the throat and a palm raised with five fingers displayed, conveyed to the astonished workmen to lay off the noise for a little.
They took one look at the determination on her face and obeyed.
They definitely did the right thing.

Don’t mess with a hospice nurse when she is looking after the welfare of her patients and their families!

This is the same nurse who told me a couple of weeks ago that she was astonished and perturbed, when going into public places beyond the hospital, to see that people weren’t wearing masks.

People in the hospital are used to wearing masks. It was always normal for the medical staff – but now everyone has to wear a cloth mask to enter the building, and walk through its halls. (However the rules have been relaxed, which means chaplains no longer have to be double masked when seeing patients. My N95 is gathering dust in a shelf in in our office – and I am grateful for that grace.)

Back to the intrepid Hospice nurse.
“I felt unsafe when I was outside and saw people milling around without masks,” she said. And I felt afraid for them. Maybe it is because we have insider knowledge. We know what Covid-19 will do even to a healthy body.”

The same thought was expressed to me recently by a charge nurse on 3B, the section of my floor that now has Coronavirus patients.
“We wear masks everywhere we go outside the hospital because we know the suffering the virus can cause,” she said. “It’s the right thing to do. And besides, if other people saw what we see daily they’d all be wearing masks. Truly”

This section of the hospital has only had the virus patients for the last few weeks. They were originally housed in a sealed off section on the same floor. That has now reverted back to orthopedics, and the Covid-19 patients have all moved to one corridor of this unit.

I asked one of the nurses on 3B what it was like to come late to the party. So much focus was given to the medical staff in the isolation wings at the beginning of the pandemic. Food and gifts poured in, given by grateful hospital staff, and the local community. As we have all become adapted to the pandemic in our midst, that is no longer happening.

It always amazes me how the human psyche adapts.

The nurse smiled. “One of my floor supervisors said that we got the Covid patients when Covid wasn’t cool.” We both laughed.
“But seriously,” she said. “The medical staff in the isolation wings were the ones who took on all the risks – when we didn’t know anything. They paved the way for us. We are learning new things every day. We were frightened at first, but now we have got into a routine and just get on with the work.”

Another nurse joined in. “We have to put on all the PPE when we go into the rooms. It can get very hot and uncomfortable, so we try to get everything done at one time and really space our visits. The patients are really, really sick when they come in. But once they start to get better they are lonely. We organize face time for them with their family, but still, when we enter their rooms they don’t want us to leave. It breaks my heart.”

The way these nurses adapt to different situations always showing grace, care, and love continually impresses and inspires me.

Talking about adapting.

During these last few Coronavirus months we have all had to adapt enormously. We have been hit with a barrage of information – some of which seems to contradict itself.

These are exhausting times.

We have had to give up so much that was familiar, reassuring. Things that we never thought would be taken from our lives. Hugs, church services, toilet paper.

There have been so many sacrifices.
Not seeing vulnerable family members when everything in us ached to see them.
Endlessly using our talents so that we can share with others – baking, making masks, gowns, face shields.
Cancelling plans for festivities, festivals, rights of passages and vacations that have sometimes been years in the making.
Sheltering in place with too many people, or no one, and the frustration or loneliness that come with those scenarios.
Incomes slashed.
Loss upon loss upon loss.

And it seems like just when it was safe to go out, in some areas of the nation the virus is starting up all over again.
Many of us are asking how long? How much more can we endure?
There is a huge desire to have it all behind us. Burst out of confinement. Shake off oppression of all kinds. But, as I keep reminding myself - Geraldine, you’ve come so far. Don’t give up now.

May none of us stumble at the last fence.

I believe this is a time of reaping and sowing. Some people might call it karma.
All the sacrifices, the tears, the determination to carry on amidst emotional pain, have not been for nothing. We are being changed. Prepared for our futures – the futures that have always been ordained for us - in a boot camp that we didn’t see coming.

I want to sow good things. Because I want to reap good things. I don’t want to lie or steal someone else’s health. I’d hate to reap those consequences.
So I’ll take my temperature every morning to make sure I don’t infect anyone at work.
And wear a mask in public for the same reason. Let us all do so.

Although it’s a pain, a hassle. It is the right thing to do. Who would willingly send anyone to be under the care of the wonderful nurses in the Covid-19 wing of any hospital? Or be a patient there themselves.

The Good Book says in Galatians 6:9 – “… let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap if we do not give up.”
The Lord’s promises are yes and amen. He loves us with a love that is more than we can possible comprehend.
Let us all hang on in there. The future is close.
And it will be good.

 

Thursday
Jun252020

Pandemic Parables: Hidden

Pandemic Parable: Hidden
Thursday, June 25, 2020

 

I am unearthing things that are hidden, or at least not obvious on the surface, in the hospital in Frederick, Maryland, where I am working as a Resident Chaplain until the end of August.

For example, I knew that there was a medical library that was located somewhere within the main campus. It was mentioned in the vast amount of literature I was given on starting at the hospital. Recently I wanted to track down a magazine article I had heard of.  But no one I asked seemed to know where the library was, or if it even existed.  Finally, one of the other chaplains said:

“I think I heard that it is on the second floor.  But I have no idea whereabouts.  And I don’t know anyone who has ever been.”

And he is assigned to that floor…

My curiosity was aroused.

I sensed a mystery.

In my head I had visions of a Harry Potter scenario.  One where you needed to summon up faith and walk through a brick wall to find the platform, and the train, that would take you to Hogwarts…

Wanting to get my 10,000 steps in daily, I regularly walk along the long corridors of the second floor before taking the stairs to the third, one of my allotted areas.  These hallways are social worker and administrative assistant land.  Many of the doors have remained shut, the offices behind them empty, during the height of the pandemic. However, a couple of weeks ago one of the assistants returned.  I’ve been seeing her through her open door when I pass by.

I had a feeling she would be the keeper of the secret.

She was.

“Come with me,” she said and led me to a blank white wall tucked around a corner, away from the main flow of foot traffic. 

Inset was a door I’d never noticed before.  It had a sign on it that said:

“Medical Staff Suite. Physicians Entrance.”

“See if your badge works the key pad,” she said.

It didn’t.

“Well, mine does,” she said swiping her badge, and opening the door.  She stood back. “The library is at the end of the hall on the right,” she declared, then left.

Behind that door was a whole different world. A bubble of peaceful comfort.

Suddenly I remembered being twelve and attending a girl’s convent boarding school in England. I had an accident involving a glass window pane being accidentally broken by my wrist. I was pouring blood, and the cookery teacher, a mother of six children - thank goodness - who happened to be passing, went into action. She threw the casserole she was carrying up in the air, grabbed my arm, flung it above my head, and ran me through the nuns' part of the building to get immediate help.

The nuns' section was a secret space much speculated about by my school mates. It was an area shrouded in mystery.

I wasn’t worried about the blood. I wanted to absorb every detail of my surroundings so that I could report back.

Too many decades later I felt exactly the same way.

Beyond the door in the blank wall on the second floor was a full kitchen, a lounge with comfortable chairs, an office section with work stations.

Doctors lounged, worked, ate.

I tried to look confidently medical, and invisible at the same time as I headed down the open corridor towards the back of the space. My ploy worked.  No one seemed to notice me.

A shut door had an attached sign that said it was the library.  A free standing notice barred entry saying a meeting was taking place within.

No!

So I didn’t get in to see the inner, inner sanctum. I didn’t find the magazine article.

But in an odd way I felt that the hospital was giving up its secrets.

I began to wonder why I was so excited to find a hidden section of the hospital.

Perhaps because it mirrors what has been happening in my life. While doing this residency I have become aware of previously unseen old patterns and current triggers. This revelation, and the resulting healing has brought me to a new level of awareness and freedom, which will help me enormously as I go forward.

Also, I have penetrated what was for me the mysterious veil of hospital life. I have become more familiar with grief, death, dedication, and love in action.

We have all learned so much through this harrowing Coronavirus time. True character has been on display. Insecurities and fears have risen to the surface on a wave of exhaustion. But we are still standing. We have endured more than we ever thought we would have to.

Maybe in some mysterious way we are all slipping behind a Harry Potter wall in our lives.

Doors will be opened for us. And if they are not the walls will melt away.

I keep knowing, saying, and believing deep within me that the Lord will make a way for us, even when there seems to be no way.

The lessons we have learned during this pandemic, and the insights we have gleaned are not for nothing.

We are on our way to a new destination. A new chapter in our lives.

And though things aren’t clear yet – the library has not yet been entered – we know what direction to go in.

And we know the space behind the wall, like our futures, is good. 

Saturday
Jun202020

Pandemic Parables: The Bunny

Pandemic Parables: The Bunny
Saturday June 20th 2020

I felt such a surge of elation on Friday a few minutes after noon when passing the gift shop in the hospital where I am working as a Resident Chaplain until the end of August.

It was open!

I charged in.

We’ve missed you! We’ve really missed you!” I exclaimed, my hands clutched to my chest in excited glee.

“What a wonderful surprise! It is so good to have you back!”

The gift shop closed a couple of weeks before Resurrection Sunday.

I have written before of the frozen Easter display including the grey fuzzy bunny who slumped further and further towards the bright orange carrot in his paws as the reality of the Coronavirus bore down upon the hospital.

One dreadful day I realized the bunny had disappeared from the window. At the same moment I spied stealthy bunny napping shadows moving in the back of the shop.

The wonderful volunteers from the Hospital Auxiliary who run the place had not been allowed in for months. At the time I presumed a couple had been granted a few hours access, perhaps to dust.

That was several weeks ago.

I’d never had any intention of buying the bunny. It was fairly expensive. On the whole I’m sensible. I didn’t need a stuffed rabbit.

But I kept staring at him every time I passed by.

A Facebook friend was incredibly kind. She read my post about the missing bunny and sent me one, a carbon copy of the bunny that had brought her comfort during a recent trauma added to the ongoing stress of the virus. He was soft, pink and squishy, with very long ears that were perfect for wiping away tears. I was very grateful. This was an act of generosity and love.

But, although I felt a tad guilty because of my new stuffed friend, I kept on thinking about the gray fuzzy bunny.

After Easter I’d had a brief conversation with two female staff members who were walking together.  I had never met them before.

We were passing the shop in different directions.

“Don’t you think that bunny looks like all of us who are left in the hospital, slumping further and further down because of the tension and stress that’s swirling in here,” I said.

They both laughed. Then one of the women pointed to the other.

“She really wants to buy that bunny. She really, really likes that bunny.”

“I do,” said the other, and she pressed her face against the window like a child in an old-fashioned sweet shop.

“But it’s closed so I can’t.”

We passed on and I didn’t think any more about the conversation.

Weeks elapsed. Then the bunny disappeared leaving a cavernous space on the shelf where his furry posterior had perched. It wasn’t part of a purging of Easter decorations. Other china and chocolate bunnies were still sadly standing sentinel. But the grey, carrot-clutching bunny was definitely AWOL, even though the shop was closed.

I pass that shop at least six times a day. I missed that bunny more and more every time I peered in the darkened window. I realized I really, really liked that bunny. I mourned his absence. I wanted that bunny.

I would go without to get that bunny.

I had to have that furry bunny!

One day I suddenly spotted that all the other stuffed animals were also missing. A whole three tiered carousel of them was empty.

Why hadn’t I noticed this before?

“I bet when those volunteers were in they took all the stuffed toys into the back so they wouldn’t become dust traps,” said a Facebook friend who’d read my post.

“The bunny could well be in with the others in the storage area.”

Like the Emily Dickinson poem, hope like a feathered thing started to flutter in my soul.

“Perhaps the bunny hasn’t really gone,” I thought.

“Perhaps he is wrapped up snuggly in the back room waiting to emerge before Easter next year.”

I wrote a note to the volunteers, although I hadn’t seen any in the shop since the bunny heist.

It started: “To the wonderful volunteers who man the gift shop”

I explained what had happened regarding the bunny, and then went on to say:

“If by chance he is still available, I would really like to buy him. Really, really like to buy him. I realize that I miss him! I have watched him constantly throughout the pandemic as I went off to do rounds and now I would love to adopt him and take him home.

“I am crossing all my fingers and toes, and sending up a couple of prayers that the bunny is safe and in your back room. Do let me know.

“My money is jangling in my pocket. Well really on my credit card. I am so hoping he is still for sale...

Thank you!”

Praying that whoever opened it would have a sense of humor, I signed it:

“A bunny love-sick chaplain.” 

After adding my name and contact details I put the missive in a white envelope and shoved it under the gift shop’s glass doors.

There it stayed.

For an eternity I saw that blob of white on the floor untouched. Day in and day out, it remained exactly where it was.

Then I saw some things had been shifted around in the gift shop.  Volunteers must have been in and left.

But the letter was unmoved.

Finally, eons later, the letter was gone. But no one was in the store. Later in the afternoon though, I saw the manager - the loveliest of women - behind the windows of the still closed shop.

I pressed my face to the locked glass door.

The manager shook her head. Weeks before she had told me she would find out what had happened to the bunny.

“It’s gone.” She said. “Sold.”

I thanked her then walked away sadly. Drooping.

Some things are not meant to be.

That was about three weeks ago.

Oh fickle chaplain that I am, I realized in the intervening time that I really could live without the bunny. But still, I hoped it had gone to a good home.

I watched as the shop windows were slowly and beautifully transformed from Easter to summer. Decorative buckets with recipes for crab boils on them, and July 4th regalia, replaced bonnets and rabbits.

Then, all of a sudden, this past Friday, the shop was open.

I discovered that they are letting that wonderful volunteer shop manager come in, and she will be helped by a staff member, the director of volunteers - an equally marvelous woman.

Six people will be allowed in at a time, and the store will be open from twelve noon until four pm Monday through Friday. Hallelluia!

It was a thrill to see those doors open!

It was such a sign that things are on their way back to normal.

(Although we still have a way to go. On Friday we had ten Covid-19 patients in the hospital and two in isolation, a slight uptick from earlier in the week. However one hundred and eighty one virus patients have been released.)

I went in exclaiming my delight that they were finally open.

“We’ve missed you” I said. We’ve really, really missed you!”

The manager smiled at me and her kind eyes crinkled.

“I’m sorry about the bunny,” she said.

“There was a meeting with one of the hospital’s compliance officers when I wasn’t here. They were discussing how best to open the store. Apparently the CO had a real thing for that bunny. She had even posted pictures of it on Facebook saying she wanted it. So an executive decision was made, and they sold her the bunny before the store was officially opened.

I suddenly realized I had seen the compliance officer.  It had to have been one of the two women that I’d met by chance months before when passing the store. The one who had pressed her face against the glass.

There was no question, the right woman got that bunny.

I felt relief.

He couldn’t be more loved or in a better home.

Clearly that grey carrot clutching rabbit was never meant to be mine.

That was confirmed when I went into the finally open gift store on Friday. There, on the shelf where the bunny had been sitting, was a placard. I started to laugh. It was a scripture from John 8:35:

“So if the Son sets you free you are free indeed.”

What a perfect end to the saga.

The bunny had been liberated.

And so had I!

I thought about the times that I knew in my heart that a person, a thing, a direction wasn’t for me, wasn’t my best option. Only to later convince myself that it was.

And I am very persuasive.

In this Coronavirus time of constant change it is easy to want the uncertainties to end, for the ever shifting ground to stop moving beneath our feet. How easy it would be to go in the wrong direction, to settle for a less than ideal solution, to make the wrong choice because of a craving for stability.

Like a mollusk searching for a rock.

Then settling for a pebble.

May we, during this oddest and most difficult of seasons, take time to go deep within ourselves and rediscover again who we are.

Why we are here.

And may we pursue that, and only that.

May we have the courage to shed all else.

May we take to heart once again the promise in the Good Book, where it says in Jeremiah that the Lord has promised to prosper us, and not to harm us, to give us a hope and a future.

 May we trust that the Lord will make a way where there seems to be no way.

May we let go of things we think we want, so that they can go to where they are meant to be.

Indeed, may all the bunnies in our lives end up in their right homes, no matter how we might try to manipulate a different outcome.

May we trust the small voice within us that guides us with truth and love, and not talk ourselves into some other version of what we tell ourselves is truth.

And may we trust at a deep level that we will have everything we need to make it through this season and the next.

Because the Lord is on our side. His promises are yes and amen. There is no shadow of turning in him.

 And that means our futures will be good.

Amen.

 

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