Pandemic Parables: Sounds

Pandemic Parables: Sounds
Monday August 17th 2020

I have been very aware of the unique sounds of the hospital in Frederick, Maryland, where I am working as a Resident Chaplain until August 28th, less than two weeks away.

In my early twenties, fresh from England, I worked for KLBJ, Lady Bird Johnson’s radio station in Austin, Texas. There I learned about a brilliant media theorist, advertising director, and sound archivist called Tony Schwartz (not the ghost writer of the President’s book). This Tony Schwartz was known as “the wizard of sound”. One thing he did was record sounds in New York streets that were very common at the time, but now are rare, or no longer. These included boys hawking the evening editions of papers. Children playing street games. Trolleys.

Influenced by him I wanted to capture some of the sounds that have been part of my every day for the past year so I don’t forget. Sounds like the swishing of cars coming in to the staff garage every morning and evening at shift change. As they clunk over metal plates there is a roaring sound like the ebb and flow of a mighty ocean.

Unexpected laughter! The manager of KLBJ told me so many years ago that laughter in the corridors and offices of a work place are proof that it overflows with creativity and contentment. It is a hallmark of businesses of excellence with happy employees.

There is no doubt that the work done in the hospital is often life and death important. But I love walking past nurses stations on my floors and hearing a gurgle of laughter and flashing smiles.

I was going to visit a patient the other day and he had a sign on his door saying “Chemotherapy- please see the nurse before entering”. I found the nurse.  She was with one other staff member.

“There is no chance of me being pregnant,” I said. “Is it all right for me to go in?”

The two of them assessed my age and smiled.

And then the nurse said “you’ll be fine as long as you don’t touch his urine.”

“I give you my solemn promise,” I said, “that I shall go nowhere near his urine.”

It was all so silly that the three of us burst out laughing, and the visit went all the better because of it.

There is the sound of kindness everywhere. Nurses encouraging frightened patients. Happy birthday being sung to a patient who is in the hospital on their natal day, alone because of the COVID restrictions. Then the sound of candles being extinguished on the cup cakes that were paid for by a generous charge nurse.

The soft shuffle and creak as an orthopedic patient slowly walks along a hall way supported by two physiotherapists, both murmuring quiet praise. A third one walks slowly behind with a big, comfortable hospital chair so the patient knows she can sit down at any time.

The medical beeps and whistles in a patient’s room coming from drips and the like. Sounds that continue to baffle me. However there is one medical sound I will never forget. A patient was in the Emergency Department. Death was imminent. The patient’s daughter was there, in her scrubs from a different medical establishment. Everything was done to save this patient’s life. And then the doctor turned to the daughter and said: “I’m so sorry. She has gone. I’m going to turn her oxygen off now. I want you to be prepared. Are you ready?”

The daughter nodded. The rhythmic hiss of the oxygen stopped. The silence of death flooded the room. We had a Pause. Then the doctor offered his sincere condolences. And, letting humanity override protocol, the nurse hugged her fellow nurse in wordless deeply-felt comfort.

Unspoken kindness in action.

One of the dramatic sounds of the hospital is the medical helicopter arriving on the helipad, situated on the top floor of the parking garage. When it arrives and leaves it seems to hover over the chaplain’s office that is next door to a peaked glass atrium. The windows rattle and a flood of fuel fills the room. That is our cue to pray for the person who has arrived or left so dramatically.

I asked one of the heads of security about the helicopter. “You never know when they are going to come,” he said in his North of Ireland brogue. You won’t get any for ages and then, they appear. We had two arrive at exactly the same time once. One of them had to land temporarily at the airport.”

“So it’s like busses back home?” I said.

“He laughed, his kind eyes twinkling. “You’re right,” he said. “Wait an age for one and then two arrive at the same time.”

“What happens if a helicopter arrives at night?” I asked. “Do the neighbors mind?”

The hospital is right in the middle of a residential area. And that helicopter certainly makes its presence known.

“Well,” he said hesitantly. “That doesn’t happen too often. And that’s a good thing.”

God bless the neighbors that will overlook the sound of an overhead medical emergency.

That atrium I mentioned next to the chaplains’ office is dramatic in the rain. The atmosphere darkens and it sounds as though we are in a suburban rain forest. One day we heard the swishing sounds of the rain, but the room was still bright. We looked out the window. It didn’t appear to be raining, certainly not to the dramatic level we were hearing.

A mystery!

But then we discovered that it was the large machine that cleans the floors of the hospital’s long corridors. There had been construction surrounding the chaplain’s recently moved offices for several months at the beginning of the virus. Because of that, the machine hadn’t been in our area. It was a new sound for us. This time the sound of water sloshing marked a return to normality.

One of the most prevalent sounds in the hospital are the operators announcing messages overhead. 

Celebration walks used to happen several times a day as COVID-19 patients were released. That happy announcement caused people to drop what they were doing and head for the front foyer to cheer on the exiting patient. Now those walks are rare as we have so few cases in the hospital. There were five on Sunday and none were in the ICU.

Thank you Lord. 

Much more common overhead messages from the operators are:

Vehicles that need to be moved.

Medical staff who need to phone a certain extension.

And codes.

There is a code for every emergency. For example a code green is for a combative person. A code grey for an elopement, when someone has left the hospital without being discharged, often their mind in a muddle. And then there are the three that chaplains respond to, these are usually, but not always for the Emergency Department. My beat.

Code heart - for a heart attack.

Code stroke - when someone is having a stroke.

And code blue when someone has stopped breathing and is near death.

When the overhead announcement starts, the chaplains immediately stop what they are doing, write down the details and respond. The first action is to phone the dedicated code line to tell the operator we have heard. You can’t hear the tannoy in certain parts of the hospital, for example patient’s rooms. So the operator will call to make sure we know about the code.

These operators sound universally lovely. My transporter friend told me that they are chosen for their calm voices.

“They have to be soothing so as not to alarm people,” he said. “They have to be able to announce an emergency in a way that does not create panic.”

The only time I heard a glimmer of a crack in their usual sang froid was when a code red was announced recently. This is the code for a fire. Our fire alarm system is tested often. We are warned before it happens and told to ignore the flashing lights, persistent sound and closed doors. However a real, small, fire broke out the other day on the roof. Knowing their voices well I detected that the operator, who must have been new, was not as calm as usual. The edge in her voice hinted at what she really wanted to say, and didn’t. “This is real folks. This time it’s real!”

I had no idea where the operators lived in the hospital, and so the other day I set out to find their control center.  I have a soft spot for operators. My mother was one before marrying my father and I loved to listen to her stories of loves lost and found, connections made and broken.

I phoned to make my request, directions were given, and I was welcomed with open arms.

What a delightful group of women! (And I have no idea why there aren’t any male operators. Perhaps they just don’t apply. )

It was wonderful to put faces to voices. We reminisced about some odd calls I’d had. I met the woman who told me my husband was on the line and insisted it was him, although I’ve never been married. We laughed at the memory.

One young operator came in to the room from her break and was surprised to see an outsider in this hallowed sanctum.

The others were working - and it was nonstop work. So I took the opportunity of asking this one a question before she settled down to work.

“What is the oddest phone call you’ve received?”

She giggled and said “Well there was one man who insisted that we had stolen his sperm and were using it to impregnate patients. And then there was a woman who called saying that her husband was keeping her from her children. Neither were patients at the hospital…”

I’m sure she handled it with these operators’ normal aplomb.

All in a day’s essential work.

In this Coronavirus season the soundscape of all of our lives changed. Traffic sounds hushed, birds seemed to sing louder, the world slowed down. Despite the fear and ravages of the virus, the world was a more tranquil place. There were the sounds of people helping their neighbors, taking meals to the home bound, phoning long lost friends.

My prayer is that none of us will forget the camaraderie, the bonds formed, the sounds of caring and every day kindnesses that have flooded this virus season. God’s work in action.

Let us take the best of what we have learned, the soundscapes we have rediscovered, into the future.

And then the future will be good.

Pandemic Parables: Exploring

Pandemic Parables: Exploring
Sunday August 8th 2020

I have been exploring in the hospital in Frederick, Maryland, where I am working as a Resident Chaplain until the end of August. The intense work study program that I have been doing for the past year, plus a three month volunteer internship before that, comes to an end two weeks next Friday, on August 28th.

Before leaving I am keen to learn as much as possible about this hospital that I have grown to love. So I wanted to see if I could visit some places that I have passed often but never peeked inside.

Friday, I thought, Friday might be my opportunity. The hospital is often quieter on that day. Patients prefer to be at home over the weekends if at all possible, and by Friday morning the exodus has started happening.

I was doing rounds before my explorations began when a Code Blue was called in the ICU. A patient had stopped breathing and a team was being called to try and save their life. Normally the ICU is not on my beat, but the chaplain who covers that area is away on a Friday. So as soon as I could leave the person I was seeing, I set off for the second floor.

On the way I passed a pharmacist I knew. She had writing on her mask.

It said, “I sling pills to pay my bills.”

I burst out laughing and her eyes twinkled. It was a much needed moment of levity before the seriousness that lay ahead.

When I arrived at the ICU I saw a group with a doctor and other medical staff in the hallway. The unit manager was walking in my direction. I saw sorrow etched in the lines of her forehead above her mask and a weariness in her walk.

“I’m too late?” I said. “Yes,” she nodded.

“Has a Pause been done?” I asked. She nodded again, “Yes.”

The Pause happens after someone dies. The medical team always does everything they can to save the patient’s life unless the person has previously requested otherwise. The intensity, determination, and concentration during those life and death last minutes is palpable.

When finally the attending doctor realizes nothing further can be done, they call the time of death. Then the chaplain, if they are in attendance, or indeed anyone else who is present, calls for a Pause - a non-denominational moment of remembrance. Of transition.

So for example, let’s say the patient’s name was Mary (and I have not cared for any Marys who have died at the hospital).

The leader would say the words that are on the Pause cards that have been distributed throughout the hospital and that chaplains carry attached to their IDs.

“Let’s take a moment to Pause and honor this person who has just passed away. Mary was someone who loved and was loved. Mary was someone’s friend and family member. In our own way, and in silence, let us stand together and take a moment to honor both Mary and all the valiant efforts that were made on her behalf. (This is followed by 45 seconds to a minute of silence.)

Thank you everyone.”

After the Pause everyone disperses to the next crisis. Most say they are grateful to have experienced a much-needed emotional buffer to regain their equilibrium.

To retain their humanity.

I had arrived at the ICU moments after the Pause had been said. The nurse manager had been part of the gathering.

“Tell me about the patient,” I said.

And that kind, compassionate, weary, senior nurse did just that. She knew not only his symptoms but his quirks, his character. The words came pouring out.

Then we stood for a moment. Both feeling the sadness, the sorrow of the death that had just happened.

“It is still hard after all these years,” she said.

And in these COVID-19 aware times, I may or may not have opened my arms. And she may or may not have stepped forward to gratefully receive a hug.

I walked away knowing I would miss these raw moments of deeply shared caring.

Holy moments.

Sacred encounters.

I headed down to the basement where I had arranged to meet a new friend outside the cafeteria. I was surprised to see so many people eating breakfast. It was ten o’clock. Almost everyone down there was a familiar face. The air was alive with chattering and bonhomie. I’m not in the cafeteria that often. I bring a packed lunch and eat it upstairs in the chaplain’s office. I’d never been there mid-morning.

I was entranced by the gathering.

My friend arrived. He is a transporter, pushing patients in their hospital beds to their next medical procedures. He is a wise, kind, humorous fount of information. He is also a fellow lover of adventures, people, and their stories. So he was a perfect choice to show me parts of the hospital many people don’t see.

He arrived and saw me marveling at the chattering crowd.

“This is the housekeepers and maintenance people’s daily gathering spot,” he said as he motioned me to follow him.

“They arrive at 6.00 am so they are on their midday break. They come together to support each other. No one told them to do so. Their supervisors often aren’t aware, but they gather regularly. They really care for each other. And they help each other whenever and wherever they can.”

I thought of all the cleaners I knew in the hospital, and all the maintenance people. Every one of them was lovely. In their own unique ways they were kind, hard-working, and efficient.

I realized I was looking at the engine room that enabled those qualities to be nurtured and sustained.

I had stumbled upon a mystery while exploring for mysteries!

I followed my friend the transporter.

I know it sounds a little gruesome but I wanted to see the morgue.

I realized a few weeks ago that the morgue was definitely one of the hospital’s hidden places. I knew we had to have one, but I realized that most people had no idea where it was.

“In the basement somewhere I think,” said a sensible Hospice nurse. “I’m not sure,” and then shuddered slightly. “It’s silly. But I don’t like the thought of it.”

My fellow chaplains had no idea where it was.

One of my favorite security officers confirmed it was in the basement. She tried to explain where, but that lower floor is a warren of corridors. I was lost even before I left her desk. Finally she leaned in and said softly:

“The door is unmarked but it has a bug zapper overhead. It’s there so you know which door it is. It’s the only electric insect killer down there.”

A bug zapper? Over the door of a morgue?

I suppressed a giggle.

Of course there would be refrigeration inside so there wouldn’t be any actual bugs. But surely it had been put there by someone with a wicked sense of humor.

It certainly appealed to mine.

I’m afraid that the child in me still giggles whenever I think of what marks the morgue.

I went to see if I could find that zapper one day on one of my lunchtime walks. I take them inside in the air conditioning these hot Maryland summer days.

I scouted everywhere. I knew the morgue must be near an exit for easy transport of the deceased to a funeral home. On my second attempt I scoured the tops of the walls until I came upon that bug death trap and found the unmarked door. And yes, it was a few yards away from an outside door.

Now my transporter friend was going to show me inside.

“I chat to all of my patients when they are alive,” he said. They tell me extraordinary things. Things they need to share but don’t have anyone to tell.”

“Like what?” I said, fascinated.

“Well there was one man, probably in his late seventies, who told me he was ready to die. He’d had a long, fulfilled life. He had made his peace with God and he was ready to meet him face to face. But the only thing was, his family wasn’t ready to let him go. They kept pushing him to have advanced procedures that he didn’t want to have. He was telling me that he needed courage to tell his family that he was going to stop all unnecessary medical interventions and peacefully await the inevitable end.”

I nodded. This story happens a lot in the hospital. It is family members who find it the hardest to let go of a person they deeply love. I was so grateful that the transporter had been there to chaplain the patient when he needed it most.

God has His people everywhere in this hospital.

“So,” my pal continued. “Naturally I also talk to all my deceased patients.”

My eyes widened.

He continued:

“I let them know where we are going and what the procedure will be. And then when we get to the morgue I introduce them to the patients who are already there. Mrs. So and So, I’ll say, meet Mr. So and So. I don’t want them to be put with a roomful of strangers. I treat them as I would want to be treated.”

We had got to the bug zapper and he opened the door. There are three rooms in the morgue suite. The viewing room and autopsy room are no longer used. He opened the door to the morgue itself. It was empty. My code blue patient had not arrived yet. Deceased patients usually stay in their rooms for at least a couple of hours so that their family can spend time with them and, if need be, the medical examiner can visit.

The morgue was not at all what I expected. In my mind I had seen refrigerated sliding compartments like on TV crime shows. This was essentially a large industrial sized refrigerator with two slabs on one side and stacked open shelves on the other. It would hold eight people, two extra if absolutely need be.

My pal explained the procedures, the laying out of the patients on wooden boards with the greatest dignity. Every transporter aware of the care and reverence that must be taken.

I asked about the preparations for the virus. Right now we have eight COVID-19 patients, two in the ICU. This is a slight increase from our lowest numbers, but senior management believes that it will level out and drop again. We are all praying they are right.

However back in March none of us knew what to expect.

It turns out that thirty seven people have died at the hospital during the course of the pandemic. Each one a tragedy, but far less of a number than we had in our worst case predictions. I wanted to know what would have happened if they had needed more than spaces for eight people, ten at a push?

“They had thought all that through,” he said.

“There must have been so much concern because of what was happening in New York,” said I.

“There was,” he continued. “But the autopsy room is refrigerated and could have been used, and they had a refrigerated unit on wheels that they had tucked away at the ready. They never had to use those contingencies. We were full a couple of times but never overflowing.”

My pal closed the heavy door of the main morgue and pointed out a Dickensian looking ledger on a narrow table. The first entry was in 2010.

“When the deceased arrives their name is written here with the funeral home they have selected. Two people have to witness that procedure. When the funeral home arrives, usually a couple of hours later, security or the lab lets them in and the patient is signed out by both of them. It works seamlessly.”

We stepped back out into the corridor and I was moved by what I had seen. I was grateful for the reverence, care, and compassion shown to patients even after their demise. I knew that this information would come in useful when comforting grieving family members. I would have answers when they asked the question. What happens next?

Still in the basement we approached another door that I had passed many times. This one was marked “Hyperbaric Wound Care.”

“Have you been in here?” Said my pal.

I shook my head.

He opened the door.

Transporters, like housekeepers and maintenance have access everywhere.

Inside, I discovered, was a modern day miracle that many people don’t know exists in the hospital. There were two huge machines in there that are the equivalent of deep diving under water. The wonderful female technician who monitors the place, and has been with the hospital for over forty years. explained the procedure.

What my non-medical ears understood her to be saying was that you wear special all cotton clothing. You stretch out in the machine and are sealed in. It’s not claustrophobic, apparently, as there are windows on all sides. Then the chamber is super saturated with oxygen until you are at the equivalent of fifty feet under water. You stay there for a couple of hours, watching a movie, chatting to the technician. Meanwhile all that oxygen is getting deep into cells that haven’t been receiving any for various reasons. They start to spring back to life and accelerated healing takes place.

Oh the marvels of medicine!

“Why all cotton clothes though?" I asked.

The technician and my pal smiled at each other. It was she who answered.

“There is a concern that if you are wearing anything synthetic you might move quickly and a spark might be produced.” She said. “That is very dangerous in a small space filled with oxygen.”

“Boom!” Said my friend with a mischievous chuckle.

I’m glad that sharper minds than mine have thought through all the possibilities and have arrived at solutions to ensure safe outcomes.

Incredible outcomes.

I’m so grateful to my transporter pal for taking me places that I wouldn’t ordinarily have gone.

In a way I feel that this Coronavirus has done that for all of us. We have stepped into worlds we wouldn’t have dreamed we would enter.

A virtual universe.

Like with the housekeepers and maintenance personnel, many of us have been part of nurturing communities during this Coronavirus time often on social media. Cooking communities; “Views From My Window” groups; storytelling, singing, and arts support sites galore.

Places that nurture our spirits, our humanity.

People have looked out for each other during this odd, hard season. They have had time to slow down and care. They have seen a need and filled it. They have shopped for those who couldn’t, baked cakes and left them outside other people’s doors. Shared largess. One English friend said that a distant neighbor gave him a basket of extra apples from her over-abundant tree. He gave her one of the jars of chutney he made from the fruit.

Modern Coronavirus miracles of bonding and grace as what truly matters in life, our lives, comes into focus.

All of this nurturing, caring, giving honor to the living and the dead, spreading love and grace. It is all God’s work.

It reminds me of a scripture in the Good Book when what the Lord wants from us is laid out in Micah 6:8:

“He has shown you, oh man what is good.

And what does the Lord require of you?

To act justly and to love mercy

and to walk humbly with your God."

May we continue to do just that. Thank you to all of you who have acted with humility and mercy during this season. For those who have stood up for what is just and right.

During this time when our worlds have changed so dramatically, may we continue to explore who we are, and where we fit in to this new, totally different reality.

May we have the courage to throw out what doesn’t work, and explore options that bring oxygen to parts of our lives that we thought had died. Indeed may the saturating oxygen of God’s love soak into our cells in such a profound way that we ooze grace and mercy everywhere we go.

May we be vessels of justice.

Ministers of mercy.

Harbingers of humility.

Then we will become what we were always created to be. And in so doing there will be fulfillment, provision, grace, love.

We will be surrounded by God’s favor.

And so whatever it holds, our future will be good.

Pandemic Parables: Flowers

Pandemic Parables: Flowers
July 31st 2020

There hasn’t been as many flowers as usual in the hospital in Frederick, Maryland where I am working as a Resident Chaplain until the end of August. I only realized this recently when I saw a beautiful summer burst of color on a counter top on one of the wings of the third floor.

“They are gorgeous!” I said to unit secretary.

“Aren’t they just!” She responded. “A grateful patient sent them to us after they had left.”

“How lovely of them. And so well deserved!” I said. Then started off on the rest of my rounds.

Suddenly I realized that the reason the flowers had caught my attention was because there are so few of them about. Pre Covid-19 days there were blossoms everywhere. Certainly around the nurses’ station where people would often leave their bouquets on their departure.

I started to investigate.

“It’s true,” said a seasoned nursing assistant, who has kindness and joy coming from her pores.

“I passed by a patient’s room the other day and thought how bright and cheery it looked through the open door. It’s only now I realize that it was because he had three flower arrangements in there. That wouldn’t be unusual in the old days. Before the Virus March madness began. But now, few of the patients have flowers in their rooms."

“Why?” I asked. “Why on earth is that?”

“Well there are hardly any visitors allowed” she said. “When friends and family come they often bring flowers. So we are missing those. A few months ago when the no visitor rule went into effect, it didn’t seem to matter so much. Patients stayed for the shortest time possible because they were so terrified of being in the hospital. And besides the virus patients, only the most necessary procedures were being done. But now we are back to regular operations and patients are in here for much longer. They get really lonely without visitors. And their rooms often seem – well unhappy. Now I realize. It’s the lack of flowers!

"Their families send them other things though. Things that they would have normally brought in themselves. Now they have to leave them at the main security desk in the foyer. It is stuff like batteries for hearing aids, clothes, and phones and books and cards. It’s usually the assistants who go down and get them. I’m often up and down six and seven times a day. That’s because we don’t have any volunteers. Only ones that are between 18 and 60 are allowed – and that cuts out most of them as they come to work with us after they are retired. And the ones that can come aren’t allowed back on the floors yet.”

“Is it the volunteers who normally wheel people out when they are released?” I asked.

“That’s right. Well at least they used to.” She said. “And so now we do that.”

I remembered seeing a third floor Nurse Manager pushing a wheelchair to the foyer. In fact I’d seen her do so several times. Now I realized it was servant leadership in action.

Still intrigued I asked the security officer at the front desk, the one who welcomes everyone with grace and love:

“Are you getting many flowers for the patients?”

“No!” She said. “Very few! Of course a few months ago when the virus really took hold, the florist shops were closed. But they still sold flowers in the supermarkets. I don’t think people wanted to come here to drop them off though. If you remember people were terrified of anything to do with the hospital.

“Nowadays we do get a few arrangements. Though not that many. Which surprises me given how sick some of our patients are. We keep the flowers here until a staff member can come down from the floors and get them."

I went to the gift shop. The wonderful sales lady said virtually the same thing.

“We were closed for so long so people couldn’t get anything from us. Just recently, after we re-opened, we started stocking flowers again. But we are not selling many. But then there are only a few visitors,though we do get some phone orders. Of course we are only opened in a limited way, from 12-4 pm Monday to Friday. That doesn’t help.”

Then her face broke into a big conspiratorial grin.

“One man phoned from his sick bed here in the hospital and ordered his own,” she said. “He said he wanted something bright and living to cheer up his room. I was delighted to send them up.”

I wondered if it was the man with the three arrangements.

I also wondered why I didn’t buy myself flowers more often.

Right by the gift shop, in the corridor, are several huge photographs. One is a close up of a dramatic sunflower. I pass by those photographs multiple times a day. But it was after having that conversation in the gift store about buying flowers that the sunflower triggered a memory and acted as a portal to the past.

I remembered being in London twenty-four years ago when my mother was at the Royal Marsden Cancer hospital. She was in the last few months of her life. I mentioned in an earlier parable how much my mother loved flowers, and that my father and I ensured that she always had fresh flowers in her room. Her friends from all over the world also sent arrangements. Or they sent money for us to buy flowers. Her room looked like a glorious, garden show, and the sight made my mother extremely happy and comforted.

They were a splash of color and life as she was facing her own mortality.

The death of a beloved parent is an intense, emotional, sacred, exhausting time.

I had that as my main focus against a backdrop of other intense, heart-wringing challenges.

One day I was at the end of myself. I had left my mother’s side with money that had just arrived in a card. I was going to buy her flowers at the sender’s request. On the way to the front entrance I slipped into the hospital’s non denomination chapel where I had my own private pity party.

“Lord!” “I said. “Where are you? I need to know you love me in a tangible way today. I just do. I feel so bereft. So alone. I wish I had a husband who would buy me flowers to show he cares. Someone I can lean on. I know that’s silly. And I love you regardless. Amen”

And I mopped up a few tears and went to the florists and chose a beautiful arrangement. As I was ogling the floral eye candy I noticed that a man who looked like Pavarotti – the incredibly talented, iconic opera tenor - came in, made a purchase and left. I went to pay for the arrangement that I’d selected. As I did the shop owner handed me a dramatically beautiful, enormous sunflower.

A sunflower that was showing off it was that spectacular.

“That bloke that just came in. He bought it for you.” He said. “He told me he thought you looked sad and he wanted to cheer you up.”

My jaw dropped. I ran for the door to see if I could see the man to thank him, but he had disappeared into the London crowd. Maybe it was Pavarotti, or a Pavarotti-shaped angel, or just an immensely kind and caring fellow sojourner. Either way I know that sunflower came straight from the heart and hand of a dramatic God for one of his heartsick dramatic children. To let her know without a shadow of a doubt that she is loved.

She is cared for.

And protected.

And that the He will always have her back.

And He always has.

The Lord knows that I love sunflowers. He also knows that I love roses even more.

Years ago in London, with the help and prayers of many volunteers, I started a theater in the church where I worked – the largest church in England at the time. We called the theater “The Rose,” short for The Rose of Sharon – one of the names of God.

So roses have always been very special to me. They speak of life-changing creativity, as well as beauty.

The same day that I heard about the man who bought his own flowers I went grocery shopping after work. By the till there was a display of gorgeous cream roses subtly tinged in the center with a soft pink. Normally I wouldn’t have spoiled myself. Finances are uncertain after the end of August. But I almost felt the Lord nudging me and saying – “Go on darling. You are so worth it. Buy them.”

I did.

I am looking at them as I write. They are beautiful. They remind me of one of my favorite scriptures.

Isaiah 35:1: (Indeed the whole chapter was the manifesto for The Rose Theater.)

“The desert shall rejoice and blossom and become like the rose.”

This Coronavirus season has been a desert time for so many of us

Our lives have been turned upside down.

For many there has been loneliness, despair, quiet desperation.

The virus seems to be never ending. In our hospital there is a small spike with seven Covid-19 patients and eleven under investigation. In other parts of the country cases are soaring.

I thought it would all be over by now. It isn’t.

Fear seems to be an integral part of this virus. For some, debilitating fear. Many of us will come to the end of ourselves before this season is over. Sometimes more than once.

When that happens, may we remember the words in the Good Book in Isaiah 43:12:

“A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick He will not snuff out…”

He will be there when we most need Him. The despair will pass. The vast, empty, lonely wilderness will not be a permanent home.

May you know light in the darkness.

Laughter in the sadness.

Joy in the despair.

May there be the equivalent of sunflowers and roses in your present – splashes of love and light in whatever form that brings you joy.

May you have a sure knowledge that the Lord is a God of miracles both domestic and dramatic. And when your spirit cries out for affirmation may He send you your own unique version of a handsome stranger with a sunflower to show you that you are loved.

The Lord is a God of power, compassion, creativity and joy. He is the God who sees you. And loves you. And wants the best for you.

He is already in your future and in mine.

Which means that our futures will be good.

Pandemic Parables: Magnet

Pandemic Parables: Magnet
Saturday July 25th 2020

This week there has been great excitement in the hospital in Frederick, Maryland where I am working as a Resident Chaplain until the end of August.

This was Magnet Week.

Let me explain.

Magnet Recognition is a huge honor awarded by the American Nurses Credentialing Center (AMCC) to hospitals committed to excellence. Indeed it’s the highest credential they give.

To even get on the radar of consideration a hospital has to have, among other things, a low turnover rate of dedicated effective nurses who love working in the hospital because they are nurtured and encouraged to advance in their careers. There has to be a healthy work environment, open communication, and excellent collaboration between different teams and specialties.

And of course there has to be absolutely fabulous nursing.

We have that in spades!

There are seventy two hospitals in the State of Maryland. Only seven have Magnet Status. Our hospital wants to be the eighth.

To be considered, there is a several years long process that includes sending in all sorts of reports Only a few hospitals get a coveted site visit, the precursor and last hurdle before achieving Magnet Status. Our hospital was offered a site appraisal earlier this year. This much anticipated event happened last Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.

The visiting appraisers couldn’t come in person because of Covid-19, so they arrived via a workstation on wheels known as a WOW.

(When I first started as an Intern last May, I heard that mobile workstations used to be called a Computer on Wheels - a COW. The nurses, and other medical staff, use them on each floor of the hospital. The name was changed after a notoriously grumpy elderly patient complained. Apparently a nurse had accidentally left one of these computers in the patient’s room. Someone else was looking for it. A nursing assistant came in to check on the patient, spied the lost machinery and came out into the hallway announcing “I’ve just seen the COW in room 3013.”

The patient heard.

Sparks flew.

The name was changed...)

(Another aside. There is no room 3013. I know because I spent ages looking for it one day. There are no rooms 13 on any of the hospitals' floors because many patients associate that number with bad luck...)

For this important visit “ambassadors” - specially selected nurses - were wheeling the WOW around. They were visiting every department within the hospital as well as Hospice and Oncology, which are in separate buildings. They met with the Medical Executive Committee who bragged about the brilliant nursing care at the hospital. They also met with members of the Community and Schools of Nursing who shared their positive experiences working as partners with us, and their experiences receiving care.

It seems as though the appraisers really liked what they saw including several examples of excellence they plan to recommend that senior leadership share at national conferences. And although we probably won’t know the results for a couple of months, by which time I will have left the hospital, all the signs point towards a positive outcome.

I am beyond thrilled.

Since I have arrived at the hospital I have been amazed at the dedication and compassion shown by the nurses. My admiration, which was already high, soared when COVID-19 became part of the equation. They deserved every one of the “hero” designations heaped on them by the community.

To me, getting the award would be a divine “Thank you!” to the nursing staff for continuously pouring out skill, love, and compassion on the sickest of patients, as well as all the others, during this fear-filled time.

One of my floors is the third floor. Before their allotted WOW visit on Tuesday afternoon excitement was running high among the nurses.

“I’m praying!” I told them all.

“Furiously!”

And indeed I did throughout the two hour on-line seminar that I had to attend while the WOW was being wheeled around.

As soon as my class ended I raced upstairs to find out how they fared.

The floor is divided into three sections.

3A was a dedicated Coronavirus isolation wing until the beginning of June.

“How did it go?” I asked one of the nurses.

She was bubbling.

“It was so good!” She said excitedly. “It was like looking into an iPad. You could see the faces of the assessors. We all thought that they’d talk to us separately but they gathered us all together. They were great. They were really interested in everything we had done as an isolation unit. We had a lovely time telling them about it all. In fact we ran out of time with lots more to say. In the end the assessors said that they would really like to come and work on 3A. And we said we’d really like to have them!”

I was beyond thrilled! The secretary and Nurse Manager also said how well it had gone.

Glory!

I trotted off to 3B, the section that now (with 4B) has the Coronavirus patients among their case load. (There is a small uptick in virus patients. At the end of the week we had seven confirmed patients, seven under investigation, and two hundred and twelve Covid-19 positive in-patient discharges. May those first two numbers shrink dramatically to zero and the last one grow. Soon! Oh Lord, Let it be!)

There was a gathering of male and female nurses in the charge nurses office.

“Tell me all,” I said. “How did it go!”

Words erupted from this group as though catapulting from a volcano.

“It went well!”

“They were great interviewers!”

“They asked the best questions “

“We had so much to say!”

“They seemed really nice!”

“And interested!”

“They said they wanted to come and work on 3B!”

I was laughing and exclaiming along with all of them and was ridiculously proud of each and every one of them.

There was a similar story on 3G. I talked to the charge nurse, who sounded like a mother hen who was delighted by her chicks, and herself. She glowed!

“It went really well.” She said. “Really, really well. The best thing is that I think those assessors saw who we are as a team. Really saw us and our work. It seems as though they loved what they saw. I couldn’t be more thrilled.”

Nor could I!

With every fiber of my being I want this hospital to be granted the Magnet award.

I have the greatest respect for these nurses, and for the ones in the Emergency Room, and Same Day Surgery - my other allotted areas. (Their interviews happened last Thursday and apparently they also went marvelously well.)

My admiration is rooted in the knowledge that I could not do what these dedicated professionals do.

Indeed I learned early in life that I was not created to be a nurse.

My first inkling of this was when I was around ten years of age. My Great Aunt Eileen lived with us. By this point in her life she was bed bound with severe rheumatoid arthritis. Her right leg was particularly painful and she kept it sticking out of the bed because even the weight of a sheet on it was too much for her to bear.

My great aunt was a character. I loved her with all her odd eccentricities.

She had lived in New York during the years after WWII but would make frequent trips back home to England. An England that was enduring severe rationing of basic goods for ten years after the armistice in 1945.

A few months before my mother’s wedding in 1953 my great aunt stepped off the ship in Liverpool and her awaiting family saw that she had put on a tremendous amount of weight around her middle.

As soon as she got home she shed that weight in a couple of minutes.

That’s when she unwound the yards and yards of expensive, beautiful, cream embossed silk that she had just smuggled into the country for my mother’s wedding dress.

My mother looks superb in the photos!

It was this same great aunt who, close to the end of her life, was in great pain and confined to bed. When she needed something she would bang on the floor of her room with her walking stick. My mother would then go up and see to her needs.

One morning my mother had already climbed the flight of stairs several times to attend to my great aunt (her aunt.)

“You go this time,” she said.

I trotted up the stairs.

“I want some more water,” said my aunt.

I went to refill her glass and placed it on her side table.

“Help me drink it!” ordered my aunt.

I scooped her up with one arm, turned to get her the water, then managed to drop her. She slumped back into her pillows with a thud.

My aunt was not pleased.

I tried again.

I propped my aunt up, turned to get the water, held it up to her lips and managed to dribble it down her chin. I made another attempt and this time some water splashed onto her chest.

This was too much for my feisty aunt.

“Get out! Get out!” She shouted. In my haste to put the glass down I slopped more water onto her.

“Get out!” My aunt shouted again.

I put the glass down and fled. But in my haste I tripped over her poor, painful, inflamed leg.

Her howls of anguish followed me down the stairs, and entered my psyche assuring me that nursing was not in my destiny.

Despite that knowledge I once, thirty years ago, looked after a famous, sometimes cranky, witty, elderly lady in Austin, Texas. She needed 24 hour nursing care, and was in the period before new health insurance kicked in. With subterfuge, persuasion, and the tiniest downright lie or two she persuaded me to come and look after her. I thought I was going to cook her meals and entertain her friends. I had no idea that bedpans would be involved.

Lots and lots of bedpans.

It was during that time that I developed a love for nurses, as well as an absolute knowing that this fine profession is a calling, and needs a divine anointing to be done well.

I rediscovered that I have neither of those things. But I recognize when other people do.

I see the calling and anointing on the nurses of all levels in our hospital.

Together with their bravery and dedication in the most trying, constantly changing, frightening, of seasons.

And that is why, I so passionately want them to get this Magnet Classification.

This divine thank you.

There are many times that the Good Book tells us that that the Lord sees what we do, and our reward is in His hand.

May that be true for all of us.

We might not have nursed others with great skill and compassion during a pandemic. But we have done what we are gifted to do.

Cook. Encourage. Write. Speak. Phone a friend. Tell stories. Knit socks.

Held on to hope in the midst of a world gone crazy.

I believe that the Lord will reward us.

He will give us the desires of our hearts.

He will change our circumstances.

We will fulfill our destinies, what we were created to do, in a way that would have been impossible without the tempering of this season.

A magnet draws iron particles towards it. We have shown courage, bravery and love during this Coronavirus season. We have let go of our accustomed way of life and gone without celebrations, hugs, and rationed our toilet paper.

We are wearing masks and socially distancing.

I believe that because of our sacrifices – these and others - we will draw towards ourselves, not iron filings, but answered prayers.

We will attract, will live in, a future where we walk in the fullness of all we were called to do. And are fulfilled and well provided for as we do so.

We will experience our own Divine Thank you.

So our future will be good.

May it be so.

Amen!

Pandemic Parables: Notice Boards

Pandemic Parables: Notice Boards
Saturday July 18th 2020

As I walk around my assigned section of the hospital in Frederick, Maryland, where I am working as a Resident Chaplain until the end of August, I see many notice boards. Some are informative, some intentionally hilarious, and others make my heart sing.

Talking about walking around the hospital though, I do a lot of it. I regularly round. (Please note that I’m starting to use hospital jargon. This phrase for popping in to see patients makes me - incredibly un-medical me - feel like an insider. What a hoot!)

In an attempt to do 10,000 steps a day I usually take the long way round the hospital and climb stairs, rather than ride the elevator to get to my assigned third floor.

Yesterday I walked to the front foyer carrying the blue plastic jug that we use to fill the office kettle. I was standing by the filtered water dispenser when a staff member, possibly a social worker or a non-scrub wearing nurse, came along the corridor pushing a large, elderly man in a wheelchair. She was clearly taking him to the front exit after he had been discharged. I smiled and greeted both of them and went back to filling the jug.

On her return the staff member said in passing. “That gentleman told me.' I’ve often seen that lady walking along the hospital corridors.' I said, that’s because she is a Chaplain. 'Oh,' he said. 'I see. I thought she was lost!'”

On some days he’d be absolutely right. But not recently. At least not physically.

Back to the notice boards!

In some of the units there are boards, praising the bravery of the staff - notes that have come in from the community and messages from upper management. Some boards have pictures of all of the nursing staff on that unit with their first names. Next to the pictures on one board, there is a declaration that these nurses are the ones that run this joint.

That board is in the orthopedic unit and it makes me smile every time I pass by.

There is a board in Same Day Surgery with pictures of all the nursing staff’s dogs. I am a pooch lover. I always linger at that one.

Then there is one at the entrance to the ICU Department. This is not on my usual beat, but I often go there on Fridays when their assigned chaplain is away.

This notice board has a regularly changing quote that I look forward to seeing.

Some of them have been:

“Nursing is a work of the heart.”

“Love is in the air but so is Covid-19. Please wash your hands.”

But the one that stopped me in my tracks the other day and had me laughing was:

“Fate whispered to the warrior, “You cannot withstand the storm.” The warrior replied. “You aren’t six feet back.”

The nurses on that unit have withstood the Coronavirus storm over the last several months. But now virus patients are rarely on their floor. The ones that have come in haven’t been ill enough to need the level of care that this dedicated team give.

The six confirmed virus patients and two under investigation that we had in the hospital yesterday were all in the less intensive Covid areas on the third and fourth floor.

We are all so aware that the virus is surging in other parts of the nation and that other State’s ICU units are overwhelmed. The chaplains pray daily for those areas, and even more fervently that Maryland as a whole, and our hospital in particular, are spared a second surge.

Lord let it be so!

The Lord certainly answers fervent prayers. I was reminded of this yet again when I passed by a notice board in the Volunteer Office. On it was a sign that said:

“The world is hugged by the faithful arms of volunteers.”

Leaning against the board was a stuffed monkey with an adorable face. I’ve been in there a few times recently and each time I’d find myself stroking its nose.

Yesterday the Volunteer Director and her assistant were stuffing envelopes and saw me. The director said: “Do you know that there is a story attached to that monkey?”

I am a Storyteller. I love stories. She had my unwavering attention.

“It happened a couple of years ago,” she said.

I settled in to listen.

“There was a little boy, about three years of age who went with his parents to see the July the Fourth fireworks in Baker Park. He had with him his very favorite toy in all the world. A stuffed monkey. That monkey had been with him since birth. The little boy took him everywhere. That night, when the family got home, they realized that the monkey had somehow been left behind. The child was inconsolable.

“The family did everything they could to find that monkey. They searched the park. They even got the Park Police involved. They broadcast their plight widely on Social Media asking for help finding the monkey for the sake of a broken-hearted three year old.

“The hospital gift shop manager saw these posts,” the Volunteer Director continued.

“She said to me, ‘I know where he got that monkey. It was from our gift shop. I’ll bet he was born here. We used to stock the very same toy. I’ll get in touch with the manufacturers to see if they can ship me another one.’

“And they did,” she continued. “They sent a complimentary monkey.

The parents were thrilled. The Park Police were thrilled. We had a small ceremony here in the hospital where the little boy was given the new monkey.

He was thrilled.

He knew it wasn’t his old toy that had three years of dirt, love, and tears embedded within it. So he decided to call it by a different name. But he was thrilled nonetheless. And immediately rubbed his face against the monkey‘s soft belly to start making it his own”

“What a wonderful story!” I exclaimed. “But if you gave the little boy that monkey, how come you have one here?”

“Ah!” Said the director. “Well, so many people read about the monkey and decided they had to have one. So the shop manager started stocking them again.”

She pointed towards the monkey with the strokable nose. “That is the last one.”

I looked at that answer to prayer leaning up against the notice board and I was whisked back to another answer to prayer at a hospital twenty four years ago. It was the Royal Marsden Cancer Hospital in London, England, and my mother was dying.

She had been in the same hospital in a different room the month before for four weeks and we had filled every surface with flowers. My mother loved flowers. This visit, my father and I decided to do something different.

There was a large empty notice board in my mother’s new room. Every day when my father and I arrived we would come by South Kensington tube station where there was a kiosk selling postcards.

Amongst the ubiquitous pictures of London busses, Buckingham Palace Guards, and the Queen - God bless her - there were photographs by a fairly new-at-the-time photographer called Anne Geddes. She specialized in taking pictures of babies. Not in their Sunday best, oh no. In deliciously unusual ways.

Twins dressed in green in a huge fabric pea pod.

Triplets in enormous flowerpots with blossoms on their heads.

A single baby laughing on a floor covered in an abundance of pink roses.

Babies in flowers, and as flowers.

Glorious, glorious babies.

Incredibly, despite being so young, each infant’s tiny personality was captured by the enormous creativity and quirkiness of the settings.

My mother loved these postcards. Absolutely loved them! My father and I brought in a new one each day and I would put them up on the notice board. My mother spent hours staring at them.

One day, when the board was half full, my mother said.

“I’d really like to know more about the photographer. I want to know how she stages those babies.”

I said: “Why don’t we pray and ask the Lord to send you someone who can tell you more about the postcards.”

She agreed. We did. And my father and I left for the night.

This was pre- internet days. All the way home I prayed silently and fervently that the Lord would answer such a bold - oh let’s be real - crazy request.

Several days later, after we arrived clutching another postcard my mother said:

“Oh by the way! That prayer was answered. I forgot to tell you. A few nights ago as I was about to go to sleep a young orderly came in to clean. He saw the notice board and he said in a strong Australian accent. ‘Those are by Anne Geddes. I know her well. She lives down the road from my parents in Sydney. I used to be her photographic assistant. Would you like to know how she gets those babies to pose?’”

My mother’s face was alive with delight. She loved babies, was always full of curiosity and humor, and she loved stories.

That was the Irish in her.

She continued. “So he did. He sat by the side of this bed and explained how every one of those pictures was set up. It was fascinating. We had a wonderful time together. I haven’t seen him since.”

I don’t know if that young man was one of the many Australians who come to work in London for a couple of years before touring Europe then returning home, or whether he was an angel with an accent.

Either way he was sent by God as answer to prayer, and to give assurance to my mother, and to me, of His continued, unswerving, everlasting love and concern.

I thank God for that notice board.

And for answered prayers.

In this strange Coronavirus season, that seems to stretch on and on.

Then on some more.

May we see the answers to many prayers that we have been praying for a long time.

After all these months, when everything in us longs for normality, may we have the strength, wisdom, and grace to persist.

To withstand the storm.

To stand six feet back.

To wear the masks.

Even when we want to be done with restrictions.

When we want to stomp and cry with frustration like a three year old that has lost his beloved monkey.

Even then may we persist.

May the right people come into our lives at the perfect time, real or angelic, to assure us that we are not alone.

That we are loved.

Cared for.

Protected.

May we come to know the Healer, the Creator, in new ways. And - as the Good Book says - may we see His goodness and kindness move, encircle us, and change our hearts and circumstances in the land of the living.

May we see miracles and answered prayers all around us. May they be like neon signs on a divine notice board, pointing us towards the future.

A future filled with love and hope.

And as the sign-giving Lover of our Souls is already in our future, we can rest in this knowledge.

That the future will be good.